You stand in an old, dusty ghost town out west, with the sun setting to your left. Down the main street from you, you see a hooded figure wearing a short, white jacket with a black sheriff's badge on it. Around you on the street, you see that all of the observers are mannequins posed in various ways in various dress appropriate to the setting.

You and your opponent quickdraw, but you find that your gun only shoots water while his shoots flames, which start to lick at your face. Strangely, the fire feels cold instead of warm and everything starts feeling just a little bit lighter than it should.

-------------------------------------------

You wake with your face on some cold surface, the floor, of a dark room. Your pointer finger itches from the gunfight in your dream. Before you get up, you still can't see much in the dark. There is a trunk at an end of the room, what looks like a bed, and maybe a desk. The whole room looks to be covered in some hard material, but you can't make out any more details in the super-low light in the room.

Your eyes begin to adjust, though, and you see a child-sized lump in the bed that moves with slow breaths.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:34, Sat 13 Sept 2014.

   After I awakened, I did my usual touch check to insure that everything is in its proper place.  I'm a little bummed as my fingers brush an empty holster.  I know that I'm going to regret using my assault phaser as a plasma grenade.  It was necessary, though, to take out Cain and as many of his sicko little buddies as I could.  Maybe I could run into Sisco or Janeway someday and talk them out of a replacement.

   This room was strange, but then most places I've awakened have been strange.  If this was a kid's bedroom, I would have expected something softer and warmer, like a rug, on the floor.  I didn't want to wake the kid by poking around.  I looked around for a door.  I needed information and I doubted there was much in a kid bedroom.

You stand and identify a metal door with a doorknob. You walk over to it, and realize there's a small area rug covering part of the small room. You reach the door, which sighs as an air-tight seal is broken. The hallway lights, which were dim, shine brighter after you step through.

The hallway is shiny, white, and metallic. It goes on for a very short distance in each direction, with two doors, one on each side of the one you just exited. Then, there's a single door across. All the doors look identical.

But, while you're stepping through, you hear a cough come from the bed behind you. Then, you hear a shuffling of the blankets and a little boy's sleepy voice.

"Ma?"

   I don't need this.  In my softest voice, the one I don't use all that often, I called out, "Go to sleep, Sweetie.  Just close your eyes."  I waited a moment, then left as quietly as I could.

   All the shiny metalic white walls make me think this is some kind of hospital or lab.  The airtight door makes me think of some kind of isolation room.  I wasn't liking this place so far.  I wasn't in much of a hallway, but it was all I had.  I went right and tried that door.

The little boy squints at you, but lays his head back down. "I missed you guys." Then, he falls back asleep, giving you the opportunity to sneak the rest of the way out.

You turn to your right, and that door is also airtight. You open it to find another bedroom, but get a better look at this room as it's washed with the bright light from the hallway. A small area rug covers the floor in front of the door, a full bed rests in the same position in the room, and there's a metal trunk at the side of the room. The bed is fully made, and the room looks like it's in pristine condition.

   I'm liking this place less and less.  Why would anyone keep a kid in isolation without letting him see his parents?  This was just another question I added to my growing list of things to ask someone.  f course, there was always the first step of finding that someone to ask.

   I looked this room over carefully.  If this was a medical facility or a lab, they probably weren't monitoring an unoccupied room.  I used this hopeful speculation to spend the time looking for monitoring devices, furniture tags, leftover papers, a local version of a Gideon Bible, a hospital welcome packet, whatever.  I wasn't tired.  I had gotten some sleep just before I got here, but the bed looked inviting.  When you've been sleeping in a tent, a real bed does look inviting.

You search the room you just entered, and find that it has no medical equipment for monitoring or otherwise in the room. As you search it, you come on the desk drawer, and find a book about an inch thick which says Advanced Helium-3 Mining Operations Station Manual: Jupiter Class across the front in white letters with a red background. You find nothing else in the room of interest. It looks more like a small dorm room that no one has moved in to yet.

Then, you notice two things at once that have been in the background of your thoughts the entire time. You notice the slight smell of rotten eggs and brimstone coupled with a tickling in your lungs that hurts slightly each time you breath.

edit: fixed italics
This message was last edited by the player at 11:24, Tue 16 Sept 2014.

   I begin to read the book.  If this is where I am, knowing as much as possible about this place could only help me.  I was a bit bothered by the air, but given the hyper-oxygenated mixture that I had become accustomed to breathing, any other mix would pale in comparison.  Still, one of my first stops would be in the engineering section.  Perhaps the air plant needed a tweak.

You read the introduction section. It explains that the manual is meant for very specific, identical stations dotting the surface of Jupiter. They're advanced facilities, with the sole purpose of mining a chemical called Helium-3 to be used for clean, nuclear power. They're meant to be manned by anywhere between two to four team members for an extended period of time.

On the next page, you find a table of contents which directs you to a map of the facility. If the map is accurate to where you are, the area you're in now is a domestic area with three bedrooms, a kitchen-laundry-living multi purpose room.

The two halls lead to the same place, a control room which also leads to a land exit to an exterior facility and a hanger for an orbital transport vessel. Both have chambers for decontamination before entering the facility.

   The word laundry got my immediate attention.  I stepped out of the room using the book as a guide to find this room and get some clothes washed.  I hope it isn't a coin-op laundry.  I'm pretty sure that I don't have enough quarters to even get one load done.

You find the multipurpose room, and the itching in you lungs only gets worse as you do, causing you to cough a couple times along the way.

In the room, you find two tables at the far end, both with white chairs and translucent surfaces on the tabletops. There're two doors to storage spaces for food-one cold, one dry, and there's a functioning faucet along one wall, which also includes an oven and enough counter space to prepare meals.

You also see in one corner a L-couch and two chairs around a coffee table with a cube sitting on it.

Also, you see another door, which leads to a single-toilet restroom with a shower/tub in one.

Then, you see your prize. It's a two-in-one laundry/dryer, and as you're examining it, you don't see anywhere to put in coins, detergent, or dryer sheets. According to the timer on the laundry machine, it will be thirty minutes before the load is finished, and the dryer cycle will take an additional hour, so you have 130 minutes to kill before the clothes you put inside are finished.

You're beginning to have trouble ignoring the now painful itching in your lungs. Your chest burns every time your lungs expand for air, and the smell of rotten eggs and brimstone is ever present.

   I wet a bandana and tie it over my nose and mouth to see if it provides any help.  I then look in the station book to see if there is an emergency drill to cover this situation.

You think the wet bandana helps a little bit, but at least the itching and pain with breathing isn't getting any worse.

Looking in the manual, you find that there are warnings about the air on Jupiter's surface being extremely toxic, and that if there's a leak to correct the problem immediately or evacuate the facility.

Correcting the problem may be an issue, though. While the manual is written in English, the sections on controls and maintenance are extremely detailed and written with scientific prose which is sometimes indiscernible. But it seems to be indicating that you need to be inside of that control room; everything looks like it relies on the buttons and gauges in that room for information and correction.

   I begin to make my way toward the control room, using the book as a guide.  Maybe there would be a big flashy red light to show me which button to push.  I wasn't expecting one, but I was hoping for one just the same.

You make your way to the control room, and once you open the door, you start hearing a "beep...beep...beep...beep..." sound coming from a console, which does have a red flashing light; however, it doesn't indicate any buttons that you need to press.

With the assistance of the manual you have and the gauges in front of you, though, you're able to work through some of the words you don't know and identify many based on context clues, and soon you start to identify what is causing the problem.

A gauge reads that the sulfur dioxide levels of the air are extremely high, while the oxygen levels are dwindling by comparison, and that the flashing red light is on a 30-meter section of pipe that all the base's air travels through outside. It indicates that there's a leak along the line, and that the only solution is repair outside the base.

The surface of the planet has temperature fluctuations and air toxicity which cannot sustain human life without one of the Jupiter-Class surface exploration suits.

WARNING: Due to the harsh environment outside of the base, extra-base repairs should be performed by base operators only in dire circumstances and never without constant communication from within the base. Proceed with extreme caution.

It also spells out that, while the suits can theoretically sustain life while oxygen lasts, the harsh environment will most likely deteriorate the suit quickly and that operations should be performed with haste.

   My first thought was a flashback to having glued my boot to the outside of a starship while corrosive engine coolant ate through my suit.  A chill ran down my back.  Fortunately, I was checked out in the use of EVA suits.  Sure, maybe not this model, but that was still an advantage over Joe the Plumber.

   By default, I was the base operator and I would have talked with the base folks, if there were any around here.  As to the caution part?  Ummm, sure, why not?  I took note of the pipe location in relation to the airlock and did a quick study of the appropriate repair procedures.  Once I was as ready as I had time to be, I set off to find the Jupiter-Class surface exploration suit in question and take this show on the road.

You locate a supply closet by the airlock to exit, and find the suits in there. The good news is that there are several suits and oxygen tanks available. The bad news is that the majority of the suits have been eaten away by some sort of corrosion. There are visible holes in several, and one that looks like it was cut down the entire leg by something.

Another thing you notice is that, as you pass the airlock to what should be the ship bay, you find no transport vessel like the manual stated should be present at all times.

   Back home, I once heard that the Southern way of expressing just how intensely messed up a situation was shaping up cold be expressed by the term, 'Isn't that special.'  Looking at those suits and the empty docking airlock, I now understood what that meant.

   Taking care to not touch any of the corroded areas, I'm going to try to piece together a functional suit.  I'm also going to put on my skintight superhero suit in the hope that it will provide some protection against the corrosive atmosphere.

The suits that look serviceable to a degree are as follows:

One has the huge gash down the outside of the left leg.
Another has corrosion that has eaten away at the back of the helmet and the chest, but the rest seems fine.
Finally, the last has bad corrosion in the right shoulder, left thigh, and in small spots down the back.

What are your methods to patch a single functional suit together out of this plastic material the suits are made from?

   This isn't good.  I was hoping for modular components to swap out to make a full suit, not this cheap stiff that looks like it was made out of a poncho from the dollar store.  If I can find some suit repair sealant, I'll use material from the suit with the bad helmet to cover the gash on the suit with the bad left leg.

   I'll first trim the corroded area from the left leg leg, so that there is only good fabric.  Then, I'll carefully use the adhesive to apply both an inner patch and an outer patch over the gash.  If I can get the suit fixed, I'll worry about the ride.  If I can't fix the suit, I won't need the ride.

You find a half-empty spray-on sealant for quick fixes, and you get to work on the suit. It takes a couple hours of extremely careful work, along with a fair amount of coughing, until you finally manage to craft a makeshift environmental suit to step outside in.

Once you're through in that closet, you step out into the main control room again. On one wall, the same controls as before, with the gas gauges and some others involving mining the air for a certain chemical rest. It says that the base's Helium-3 capacity is a little over half way full.

Additionally, you see a modest desk with paper maps of the base strewn about it, but now you also notice a very small (8 in by 5 in) laptop device beneath them.

Finally, a set of equipment that you don't immediately see a function for sets beside the airlock, facing outside. It has three monitor screens, all of which are off, and it looks like an ear bud connected to a thin metal wire sticking straight out of the device and up, toward where the chair might rest at the desk.

All of this you'd already seen, but I had failed to mention in detail upon you entering the control room.

   I check the charges of air in the suit helmets.  If there is a partial charge and a full charge, I'll put the full charged one aside until I'm ready to leave the station.  I'll wear the partially charged helmet now because I like breathing.

  Once I can breath, I'll go check out the little handheld computer thing to see if I can get it to work.  I'll also check to see if it is a scriff enhanced device before I turn it on.  If it is, there might be a way for the kid to get off of this rock after all.

The oxygen tanks aren't light, but you bear a half-full one easily enough and connect it to your helmet to give you a steady flow of air. Soon, your lungs stop burning quite as much, but they're still sore.

You find no scriff-enhanced devices, but you do access the small computer. Opening it seems to activate it, and the screen turns on. It has two options on the opening screen:

Charlie, which has the picture of a man who looks to be in his twenties.

Lucy, which has the picture of a woman who looks to be in her twenties.

   I'm thinking there are so many ways this could go wrong... RFID chips... fingerprint scanners... passwords... retinal scans...  But this is a middle of nowhere mining station, so what kind of security do they really need on their comps?  There was only one way to find out the answer.  I tapped the Lucy icon.

When you touch your finger to the Lucy icon, the ring around it starts flashing, and then suddenly stops. Everything is still for fifteen seconds after, but then there's a friendly four-note tune as the desktop pops up. The background is a multi-faceted, yellow, translucent rock on a metal table.

There are a few folders accessible. One looks like a pictures folder but is titled "Home" instead. Another looks like it contains audio files, and after browsing the start menu you find several single and two-player games on the device.

You also find a folder full of small word files with various titles: "Another Average Day", "Finally on the Ground", "Our Little Secret", "Charlie's a moron..." and so on.

What else are you hoping to find on the device?

   I want to read the last entry time stamped in this diary, hoping for a clue as to what is happening.  Then, I'll go check out the screens by the airlock.  If I can bring them up, maybe I'll be able to learn more of how to fix this problem.

When you scroll down to find the most recent entry, you see that it is flagged as an important document. It is the only one flagged this way, and you open it.

Titled: Unhinged

I know he's fine. It's only been twenty minutes and he has plenty of air in his tank, even with the heavy lifting. The same pipe as the last twenty times there's been a leak out there. Good thing it isn't one of the Helium-3 pipes or they might actually come down here to fix it.

I hate the faux comm equipment, but he'll be fine. No point calling out there to him yet. It'll just waste more air than he needs to so he can shout back to me that he's fine. Five more minutes, and I'll call.

I hate the poor camera angles. Can't even see through the gas, let alone the dust it always kicks up. I wonder if we can get some new lenses delivered next time we send a shipment up...

It's only been two minutes... going to be a long ten minutes. I might suit up, just in case. I'll call early. He's probably fine, but... Just in case...

Charlie. Please, please, please come back soon.


You go over to the monitors by the airlock, and find that they're cameras when you turn them on. There are six cameras. One is of the airlock, two with different angles into the empty hangar. Finally, there are three cameras pointing at different places outside. One is of a large device that looks like a high-tech AC unit visibly sucking in air to take underground. It has three pipes exiting it, heading toward the station. The other two are too busy with gas and dust to see. But in one of them, you see something that looks like a thin, white log on the ground at the edge of the camera screen. You can barely make it out through the thick gas in the camera.

Separately, you see the microphone has its own small monitor, a set of dials, and a keyboard. The monitor comes up when you mess with the dials, and you realize it's a communications area, with options to communicate locally or orbitally.

   I first check the date/time stamp on the file and compare it to the current date time on the tablet to see how long ago the file was created.  Next, I'll try to establish communication with whoever is local.  I'm really not expecting an answer, but I'm still going to try.

The date and time indicate that it was posted four days ago.

The local communication attempt results in only silence. The terminal indicates that there are no active devices close enough to be picked up on the local-range communication network.

   I'm switching to the orbital settings and giving it another try.

With the orbital comm open, you see that the machine has an option to search for available stations in the area by typing in some specific receiver information or to broadcast a message to anyone listening out there. There is one comm channel that you see is pre-programmed into the terminal, though, titled Gemini.

   I'll select the Gemini frequency and try to contact someone.

You dial up the Gemini frequency for your transmission easily. It gauges the connection as extremely strong.

What would you like to transmit as a message?

   "Hello?  I'm not sure where I am, but this is a helium mining station.  This station has a major problem with the air system.  There's a break in an outside pipe and the air in here is getting very caustic. We need help."

A voice replies to you from the speakers. It's male, in his late teens or twenties by your guess. He interrupts you after you say "Hello".

With a drone voice, he comments calmly, "Lucy, Jupiter 4's comm hours don't begin for another thirty minutes. Unless this is an emergency, disconnect to keep the frequency open for other stations." Then, when you state the situation, his voice gets more serious, and slightly condescending. "Damage to the station's air purification and filtration system? Have you taken measures to repair the damage using local tools and completed an accident report on the network for how you damaged the system?"

   "This is an emergency.  I'm not Lucy.  Lucy and her husband went out to fix the leak over four hours ago.  I don't think they made it.  My name is Misty.  The kid and I are in serious danger.  I'm just visiting.  How I got here is a long story I don't have the air to tell you."

He doesn't sound convinced over the comm. "Are you going by Misty now? Lucy, that's against protocol for dupes. What are you talking about a kid? This isn't normal dupes as young as you... I'll report this to my superiors to see what we can do to get you some additional supplies or a team to repair the station. For now, we'll send a probe and contact you in your window tomorrow with the plan. Sit tight with Charlie."

Before he clicks off, you hear him say to someone, "You won't believe what the Lucy at J4 just said..."

   I attempt to reestablish communications.  "We do not have twenty-four hours worth of breathable air remaining.  By the time you get here tomorrow, the station equipment will be so corroded by the invasive atmosphere, you might as well write Jupiter Four off as salvage.  Also, all that precious Helium-3 you've been mining will probably have vented back into the atmosphere.  What is it going to be... rescue mission or salvage mission?"

You send your communication out, and see a confirmation of connection to the Gemini frequency; however, you receive no transmission back to the base you're at.

Soon after, you hear a knocking on the door behind you and to the right; it's the same door you used to enter the control room. Through the window, you see the very top of a little boy's head poking up, his eyes barely high enough to see through it.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:36, Wed 01 Oct 2014.

   I looked at the door and realized that the kid was out there.  I had mostly forgotten about him while trying to get the air system working.  The kid must be in terrible shape by now.  I opened the door to the control room and began to remove the suit, in order to give it to the kid.

He's smiling sleepily when you open the door, and you see that his lips are a little rosey and his skin extremely pale.

"Sorry, I know you told me to stay in bed, but I missed you. And I think I might be sick." He coughs weakly.

Then, when you start taking the suit off, his eyes go wide, and he backs up. "Y-you're not mom. Who are you? Where are they?" He tries to look past you into the empty control room.

   "Kid, your Mom and Dad aren't here.  I'm,... uhhh... the babysitter.  There's something wrong with the air.  Put this suit on and I'll get you a fresh tank of oxygen.  You won't be able to move around, but you should be able to breathe until a repair crew can get here."  I went to get the full tank of oxygen to hook it into the suit.  The air was worse to breathe than I remembered and my memory is really good.

He coughs again. "Baby...sitter..." He looks at you skeptically, and very cautiously enters the control room that you're in. But at the promise for fresh air, he comes in tentatively and gets in the suit.

The air does indeed hurt to breathe. Even after the kid is in the suit, he doesn't show any changes. He's pale, and you see that he still seems to be short of breath.

   I'll try the orbital station again.  "This 'kof' is an emergency 'gasp'.  We need 'hack' immediate 'kof' evacuation.  Air quality is 'choke' unbreathable.  'kof-kof'  Dammit!  We're 'hack' dying here."

While your chronic cough continues, you begin to feel some fatigue and vertigo, but you can still manage to function.

The boy, on the other hand, still looks awful despite having clean oxygen to breathe now. He continues to look horrible, which holds what little attention you can spare.

Then, your attention snaps readily again when you hear a crackle over the comm, and a soft male voice comes over. It's a different person from before, and he says, "Listen, Lucy..." Then someone else talks, and he says, "I mean Misty, we are coming to help. From the data we've been able to download from your station, it looks like the residential sector of the station has a lower concentration of sulfur in the air than the remainder of the station. Move there and try to stay calm; the bosses are sending a John and a Henry down to help you. You can trust them."

   I shrugged back into my pack.  The familiar weight settled on my shoulders.  Next, I helped the kid to his feet and then pick him up to carry him.  "Come on. 'kof'  Let's get 'hack' below."  The kid in the suit was heavy.  Maybe it wasn't him, it just could be me breathing in this unhealthy air.

   As I headed down below, I wondered about the workforce.  I wasn't Lucy, I was a Lucy.  They aren't sending down John and Henry, they are sending down a John and a Henry.  This sounds like they are using commercially constructed clones.  They probably think I'm a Lucy that has gone off the rails.  I can see why.  How else could I have gotten here?

The child is heavy. Heavier than he was when you picked him up earlier to help him suit up. When you put him down again on one of the beds in the living quarters, you notice he is a lot heavier than before. And that's when you realize that between the control room and here, the boy has lost consciousness. He breathes shallowly but consistently.

   At least the kid still has clean air for breathing.  That's more than I can say I have at this moment.  It's good that the kid is resting.  Maybe some of the toxins will flush out of his body.  It's bad that he's sleeping, because I can't ask him any questions.  One big question on my mind is did two synthetic humans stuck together on a mining station create a real human offspring.

The air is still awful in this area, and you can't tell the difference from taste, smell, or pain from the other. But you aren't quite as dizzy, at least.

You wound up in the room the kid initially had. He has home-made toys from cloth tied up to look like people and animals. There's one metalworked scrap that looks like a lion, as well. It has springs for whiskers, bolts for eyes, and small blunted screwtips for claws.

His clothes also look like home-made scraps of other material. You notice that the arms and legs, while cut to the proper height, are too wide to be made for a child, let alone one of his age.

   From what I see, the kid isn't supposed to be here either.  His toys were made by recycling other things.  His clothing is cut down adult clothing.  I can only speculate how the kid got here.  If he wakes, I can ask him.  If he doesn't, well... he doesn't.  Either way, I'm not planning on going anywhere soon.

The kid does not regain consciousness, and soon you lose consciousness as well, while holding him. You wake up and your lungs feel heavy with a dull throbbing pain. You see two men with small oxygen canisters and masks over you.

One pushes it against your face, while the other goes to help the kid in bed. "What the...Henry! Henry, there's a...****, he's in bad shape." The man takes his own head piece of his suit off and slaps his ear on the kid's chest. He picks up the boy. "We have to get him to Gemini NOW. Grab whoever that woman is and get her to the ship too. None of this is making any sense."

He curses under his breath and he speeds out of the room. The man, Henry, who's over you reaches down to fireman-carry you.

   I breath as deeply of the canned air as I can as I make every attempt to get my backpack, no matter how feeble the try.

The oxygen gives you a very slight high, but then you might just be getting a little closer to normal with the clean air in your lungs. It gives you enough strength to grab your bag and grip it in your arms.

Henry has to carry you like a baby instead, but he doesn't seem to have too much trouble hauling you and your luggage. He hands you the small tank to breathe with while he takes you out.

Soon, he walks you through the complex, the control room, and out into the hanger, where a very small and very rusted ship awaits. He takes you inside of it, to a cargo area with a row of seats that has the space of a medium-sized bathroom. There, you find the other man who saved you and the boy coughing violently while looking over the boy. He has attached an oxygen mask to him for now. Henry places you down gently on the hard, metal floor of their small ship.

"John, are you..."

The other man gains his composure, and looks up at you and Henry. "There are cuffs in the cockpit; grab them for me." John stands straight and approaches you. "That isn't Lucy."

   The clean air felt won-der-ful.  I sucked it down like a strawberry shake on a hot summer day.  Hearing someone calling for cuffs got my attention.  "You don't need the cuffs.  I've been telling you all along that my name is Misty.  Check with your Boss.  I was the one who radioed that there was a problem on the station, saving my life and your company a bazillion dollars or credits or whatever you use for money here."

"Listen, you say I don't need cuffs, then prove it. Drop your bag and your weapons and slide them to my side of the room, slowly. And then you need to explain exactly how you got here and what happened to Lucy and Charlie at this station. Did you kill them? Where are they?"

Henry comes back, handing John the cuffs. "Your call, Misty. And understand this: I may be a dupe, but I know enough about medicine to know your son needs the attention of a proper medical staff and soon or he will die. And we aren't leaving without Lucy and Charlie."

   I dropped the bag, but made no move to lose my weapons.  "First off, the kid isn't my son.  I don't know who he is because he passed out from the bad air before I could talk to him."

   They seemed to be listening, so I continued.  "Second, I think your Lucy and Charlie went out to fix the leak, but never got there.  I didn't see them on the station and the docking bay where a surface utility vehicle would be docked was empty.  The kid said something like 'I missed you guys' when I accidentally woke him.  It doesn't look like your co-workers are still around."

   And now for the hard one.  "Third, my weapons might be the only thing keeping me from being stuffed out an airlock, so I think I'll keep them for the time being.  I mean you no harm, but I don't quite know that you mean me no harm."

"They weren't just our co-workers!" Henry flares up, but John raises a hand and silences him.

John replies, "You have us at a disadvantage, Misty. They don't let dupes carry weapons on the Gemini." He looks with concern at the boy, and you see that the boy strongly resembles the picture on the tablet you saw earlier-of the woman. He has her chin and hair color. He takes a long moment to consider, and says, "Henry, get the ship going and get us back to the Gemini. Misty and I have more to discuss."

Once Henry is gone, he says, "I've known and worked with three Henrys before. He's not an idiot, but he can get rash and miss things." You feel the ship hum gently as it starts up. "The young boy must have crashed too, and it's a miracle that he reached this station when he did and found shelter. Luckier for him, you wound up here too, whether you crashed or decided Jupiter was the place to go into hiding, you saved his life by happening upon the station and calling the Gemini."

Then, you feel the ship lift off, and start to move. "We'll find a place for him, and you'll be the hero. We need to make sure that the boy remembers this all too, for when they ask on the Gemini."

   "Dupes?"  I smiled inwardly.  That explained a few things.  "I'll trade you an answer for an answer.  Since I answered the one about Charley and Lucy, it's my turn to ask a question."

   As long as we were talking peacefully, I didn't have to shoot anyone.  Besides, I didn't know how to drive this bus.  "First I must apologize in advance for my choice of words.  I'm soooo not from around here and I don't know if certain words will cause offense.  By dupe, do you mean duplicate as in replicant, clone, and/or synthetic humanoid?"

   In two of my other stops, I learned about the myself on that world.  I even met myself once.  That was... different.  I couldn't help but wonder if there was a genetic copy of me stored somewhere in somebody's biological xerox machine at this stop.  What if I was named Mavis or Brunhilda or Prudence?  No, it wouldn't be Prudence.  I've never been known to have shown much prudence in my life.

   On the other hand, I learned that Dupes weren't allowed to carry weapons.  That meant somebody was allowed to carry weapons.  I wondered what they used around here.  I also wondered what it would take to get my sticky little mitts on some of them.

To your question, he shrugs. "Of course. Maybe we're called other things on other planets, but it's dupes at Gemini."

Then, he looks at the boy again, putting his hand on his head. "I want to cash in an answer with you too, but differently. I don't care where you're from, but what I told you is what happened, okay? You found the boy and saw his ship crash down to the surface. His parents probably died on impact. He's probably still suffering confusion from his exposure to the planet's gasses, which is why he may not remember things like that." He seems to put emphasis on these points, asserting them as true instead of actually asking you.

   This guy seemed relatively calm about the fact that I was on their mining station.  I like calm.  "All right, that explains the kid.  What story are you going to use to explain me?  I'm not a dupe.  My name is Ms. Teri Reynolds.  I go by Misty.  I was born on Earth in the latter half of twentieth century.  Back home, I was a private investigator.  I have ID to prove all of this.  How I got on your mining station is a little more complicated and harder to prove."

"Well you can explain how you got here with such strange and old identification if you'd like..." He looks at you, and rubs his chin thoughtfully, "But you probably crashed or landed on Jupiter as well in some emergency, honing in on a station to resupply and wait for transport back to an orbital station and eventually home to Earth... Good thing you happened upon the boy when you did, though. It's not the best story, but if you can't come up with better, I'd stick to it."

He stays steady as the ship jostles more. "It's a bumpy ride through Jupiter's storms, but it should be a relatively brief trip. You should get some rest while you can."

   He wants me to be a crashed space traveler?  If they ask me anything, I wouldn't know the difference between their version of a Yugo or a Hummer.  I have no idea of the techniques of piloting a spacecraft.  I couldn't even give them a starting place and an eventual destination for this supposed journey.  But then I had an idea...

   "What if I told them that I was a dimension shifting traveler who jumped between worlds solving problem where I land.  I could tell them that I was going to an assignment when I got pulled off course somehow and landed at your mining colony.  It would explain my papers, how I got here without a ship, and why I know nothing about your society and culture.  What do you thing of the idea?"

He doesn't look like he believes you. Still, he nods. "It's a gamble, but it could work." He continues to look at you suspiciously, but then asks, "Can you watch the boy for a minute while I head to the cockpit? Now I know what I need to tell our superiors upon approach."

He rises and begins heading to the cockpit. Though the ship moves erratically, he moves with a practiced grace aboard it.

   Now that there is a semblance of calm and breathable air, I'm going to try something.  I learned a few tricks from a talented little girl what seems like a very long time ago.  I took a few calming breaths, then tried to read the kids thoughts in an attempt to learn something about him.

You reach over mentally to the young boy while he rests, and see his eyes flutter open and closed. He seems awake, and you pick up some very simple surface thoughts from him, but nothing apparently useful.

Where am I...
...this bed hurts...
She said...she said....! WHERE? this isn't home... they'll be worried when they come home...
It's dangerous out...

And you see his eyes tear up a little bit, but he loses consciousness again as you feel the ship stop jostling. It's smooth sailing now, and you feel slightly lighter too.

   The kid's thoughts didn't make much sense, although I understood them.  I have often awakened with the question of where I was.  I have also realized that where I wake isn't always the same place as when I close my eyes.  Maybe the kid's thoughts were making some kind of sense after all.

   I did a scrif check to look for fellow travelers in the multiverse.  Mostly, I'm wondering about the kid.  Maybe he is...  Maybe he isn't...  I'll know something either way.

You sense no scriff aside from the direction of your equipment; however, soon you feel a jerk as gravity shifts another direction, and shakily returns. Then, it shifts again and soon you feel something very close to a sloppy but sustained earth gravity, and the ship stops moving.

John and Henry join you and the boy in the back. That's when the boy began convulsing. His legs shoot out hard, and he shakes bodily, almost like he's having a seizure, but it's a little different from that.

John curses loudly, and grabs him, jerking and all, when the airlock opens and opens up to a small, but less small than the Jupiter station's, hangar bay. When it opens, you see a couple of professionally-dressed men with batons by their sides approaching from the exit of the bay at a distance.

   I'd wager better than even money that these two are security types.  Normally, that wouldn't be a problem because I'm also a security type.  There is that one little issue of them not knowing that I'm also a security type which could be a problem.  Well that and my ended up on one of their mining stations without using any type of spacecraft to get there.

   I grabbed my pack and headed for the hanger bay.  No matter what happens next, I wanted a bit of room to move around.

The hangar bay has three other small transport ships resting in pristine condition; the only one with any wear is the one you just arrived in. A large and wide exit is on the far side of the room where the security personnel approach from.

John looks panicky as they approach, but hardens his eyes as he lifts the child and runs out of the ship. Still, when he reaches the two security types, he looks down and stops.

They, concerned, usher him to the exit. "This must be the one that was reported as injured. Take him to the medical bay immediately, then return to your own duties." With his eyes still down until he's well past them, John continues toward the center of the base.

They look at you with more respect, and the security type on the right gives you a grin. "Hello, miss. Welcome to the Gemini. The dupe said there was a woman on board they found at the station too. Are you feeling well? It's lucky we reached you when we did."

Henry unpacks some of the emergency supplies from the transport ship, moving past you and the security types with his eyes downcast or looking away, like you and the other two don't exist.

   I smiled.  At least they weren't shooting at me yet.  I always take not getting shot at as a good sign.  "Thank you for the rescue.  The air was getting... somewhat unpleasant.  I should be fine.  I recover from things relatively quickly."   "Thank rescuers... check."

   They recognized that I wasn't a dupe.  That was also a plus.  "My name is Teri Reynolds, but I usually go by Misty.  I'm not from around here."  "Lame first contact protocol... check."  Some things never seem to change.

"No doubt you've been through a lot." The one on the right glances to the one on the left, who's been mostly quiet. "Why don't you go hurry to make sure the boy gets adequate care? That dupe could mistake the medical bay for the latrine."

The left officer, nervous, nods briskly and walks out of the room in the same direction John went.

Then, the one reaches for your bag and says, "My name is Adam Dividius, chief of security on board. I'm sure you're tired from the demands on your body down on the surface. Let me take you to the medical bay, then we'll find you a bed as warm as space can offer."

   I let him take my backpack.  "Please take good care of the bag.  That pack contains everything I own, so I'm really protective of it."  Truth be told, a bed and some medical care sounded like a really good idea.  "And when you get a few minutes, I'd like to tell you a tale that is totally unbelievable, completely unverifiable, and absolutely true."  If all else fails, tell the truth...  or at least most of it.

He briefly touches your hand when he takes your bag from you, and you're not sure if it's intentional or not, but he's a perfect gentleman, opening doors and walking slowly enough that you don't feel like you have to push yourself to keep up in your deteriorated state. Your lungs still hurt a little bit.

He says, "I'd love to hear about where you're from; maybe if you're up for it and the docs approve, we can grab some food, walk the gallery we have here, and talk about it." He flashes a smile at you with a hint of a blush, but turns quickly back to walking you to their medical bay, which turns out to be well-furbished. It's an entire unit, fully staffed with two nurses and a secretary of sorts. Looking around, you see that many of the beds have patients in them with the doors open.

He checks you in with the secretary, whom he barely regards. She responds mechanically, for you to take bed 28 and that the doctor will be with you shortly. The doctor is there at the desk. They take your vitals and oxygen, but you're already starting to feel better. Adam stays with you to talk and wait on the doctor.

   I take special note of their medical gear as they treat me.  I'm always looking for something helpful to take along with me.  I try to hold up my end of a pleasant conversation, considering that I know nothing of anything relating to this place and talking about the weather seems rather pointless.

No devices that just spontaneously regenerate, but you see some of the humdrum stuff: blood pressure machines, pulse oximeters, thermometers, syringes. You do see a canister of foam gauze, but that's the only special thing you identify as they come to examine you.

The doctor, a woman, steps in briefly and looks over a tablet. She's very matter-of-fact with you, dismissing Adam immediately upon entering. "Looking at your vital signs, it looks like your oxygen level is low at the moment. Based on the young boy you brought with you, we can tell it's sulfur gas poisoning. We can give you an oxygen canister. We'll set it up to be on 2 liters of oxygen for now, but you have our permission to go up to 4, if you start feeling light headed or short of breath. If you continue to feel those symptoms on 4 liters, we want you to return to the medical bay then. Keep it on for the next 48 hours, then come back to the medical bay to be reassessed. Do you have any questions?"

They have a rolling oxygen tank with a nasal cannula for you to use for the time being. It is uncomfortable, but not as bad as having to hold the oxygen treatments over your face. Those were starting to make you feel woozy anyways.

   "Thanks, Doc.  How is the kid doing"  He wasn't really a client, but these days, paying customers were a little hard to come by.  That is why I consider myself more self-employed than anything.  The hours were still irregular, but sometimes the jobs were a lot more interesting than doing background investigations for companies or trying to catch someone's hubby or wifey playing pattycake in a rented room.

Your doctor looks back and forth, then lowers her voice. "The boy is in bad shape. When the John brought him up, his oxygen saturation was already very low and it was effecting his other systems as well. We're treating him now, but recovery seems unlikely. But I need to see to him again." She raises her voice back to normal. "The secretary will check you out and bill you for the supplies and treatment plan if you don't have the credits now. I hope you start feeling better son, Ms." she checks her chart, "Reynolds." Then, she's out again and Adam is back in with a nurse, seeing you to the front desk.

Adam assures you that the medical fees for this will be low if anything at all, due to the circumstances around your sudden appearance on their surface station. He offers to take you to the cafeteria and then the gallery he mentioned earlier. "They have some exhibits that update regularly, 3-D imaging hooked up to four museums down on Earth."

   I thanked the Doctor and told her that I would see her in two days, or sooner if need be.  I was a bit concerned about the medical bill.  Nothing would be fine for a bill, but I shuddered to think of what the people here considered a small medical bill to be.  Before, when I had to seek medical assistance for ummmm... job related issues, the medical bills nearly wiped me out.  I could hardly wait to get this bill.

   I spoke with Adam about my situation.  "Adam, I would love to go to the cafeteria with you, but could we make the gallery visit a little later?  I need to visit the secretary to get checked out of this hospital first and stop by a bank to see about getting some of these credits you use for currency here.  Also, I've been going for what feels like forever.  Is there a place I could bunk out around here?"

You have some paperwork that you have to fill out with the medical bay secretary, including name and address, employee ID number (which she says you can omit "Just put the room you're going to be staying in for now, dear"), etc etc...

Adam supplies you with the room number, set up like hotel suites and rooms. "It's not great, but it is a good place to bunk down and get some rest. Bed, kitchenette if you like to make your food yourself, a computer in the wall that folds out into a small desk, a sitting area with a telecube, a Gemini phone, and a keypad lock. You're in unit B441.

He walks slowly with you to the cafeteria, offering you some chicken or beef tacos with some synthetic cheese and lettuce. Then, he walks you to your room. "My room is A12; you should be able to dial it with your phone whenever you want to go to the gallery. If I'm not there, I'll probably be in the main security office. And if you wanted to open up a loan account or maybe apply for some work on board, you shouldn't have any trouble on our intranet through our intranet. There's actually a public forum where people need help with odd jobs, but be careful, they let the dupes use it too and they aren't always good for their payments." He touches your hand once before leaving. "I look forward to seeing you again, soon, Misty; get some rest."

   I filled the paperwork out as best I could.  Not having a fixed address any more means that there were a lot of blanks left on the form once I had filled it out.  There was one question I made sure to ask, "So, how much is the bill?"

   I thanked Adam for all of his help and promised to call him once I woke.  I really was exhausted and having what passed locally as a good meal wasn't helping me keep my eyes open.  Normally, I try to do some local research when I arrive someplace.  From what I understood, most everything took place on their intranet.  I would have to take a look at it later, much later.

   The oxygen tank I was dragging around was getting annoying, but I knew that it had to be my best buddy for the next two days.  I figured out enough of the room's plumbing to alleviate some biological distress and for a quick shower.  Once I was clean and relaxed, I tucked my Glock under my pillow and was asleep in no time whatsoever.

The secretary starts answering your question, "We'll bill your room after we see how much the charges are considering your policy," she looks down at your filled-out information, and then blinks. "Oh. I see. Out of pocket, the processed bill should be-"

"Covered," Adam cuts in. "It's a little bit of oxygen for a couple of days and five minutes of a doctor's time. It's nothing that we can't handle." He smiles reassuringly at you.

You crash hard into your soft pillow and firm mattress, but fall into a deep sleep. So deep that you're not entirely sure how long you were out when you awake to find that you had forgotten to turn off the lights in your room before falling asleep. But, when you wake, you find your new best friend by your bed and the nasal cannula still mildly irritating the inside of your nose. But aside from the minor annoyance, you feel refreshed, alert, and you breathe full, painless breaths through your mouth and nose.

   It was a wonderful morning, no matter what the actual time was outside of the room.  I did the quick shower thing again, noticing that my supply of camp soap was starting to run a bit low.  I'm not sure what they used here, but I'd bet better than even money that it was as multipurpose and bio-friendly as my stuff.  I took a few minutes to wash, rinse, and hang up the clothing I wore yesterday.  I figured that it would be dry in time to wear tomorrow.  While I was in the mood to clean things, I gave all my weaponry the once over to keep everything working, then packed most of it away.  I also took a moment to see how much oxygen was left in the tank.

   I dressed in my usual blue jeans, black tee shirt, and cross-trainers.  I only wore the Glock in the shoulder rig with a couple of spare mags under the other arm to balance things out.  I wore my denim jacket to cover the harness.  I tucked a few ounces of gold into my jacket pocket just in case there was a place to exchange it for credits.  I really needed to go shopping.  I needed traveling food, toiletries, some replacement clothing, and maybe something for my collection of things that go bang in the night.

   I was getting hungry, but I still had some research to do.  I fired up their comp and poked around to find the local news and the location of what I would call their shopping mall.  I also looked for job listings.

   Finally, I considered myself ready for company.  I dialed A12.

Their shopping mall you find is more like a skymall. You can order things to be delivered with the next shipment of food and supplies, which is scheduled to arrive in four weeks, but you have to order things at least a month in advance, so a strict deadline for placing orders is in two days. What sort of things are you interested in buying?

Local news discusses he Solar Council and developments in another system, referred to as the Epoch System. Evidently, those indigenous peoples in the other system are stirring up trouble again for the local respected government trying to harvest their resources and bring them enlightenment. Aside from that, more local news discusses big breakthroughs. It looks like they've perfected a cryogenics process specifically for clones, so that they can be stored until needed without needlessly eating into their already very short lifespans.

When you search for joblistings, you essentially find two separate sites. One is a forum that wreaks of conformity to an ineffective system, where people post their needs in forums that have to do with their needs and hope to find providers who can meet them. The other is almost exactly like craigslist. It's efficient, and clearly easy to use. It also doesn't require a login ID to browse. On the craigslist site, there are currently twenty jobs waiting for responses, all posted within the last two or three days. What sort of jobs are you looking for?

OOC: Sorry for the delay in posting again.

   I looked at the list of things available to be ordered.  I didn't understand the fashions, but that wasn't anything new.  I've never understood what passed for fashion.  The offerings were all nice, but there were two things stopping me from getting anything.  The four week shipping time threw me a little.  I tried to remember the last time I was somewhere for a whole month.  The only time I could remember was while on the Yankee, my first destination.  The other thing stopping me was funds.  I didn't have anything on file.

   No funds on file meant I needed some kind of a job.  I ran through my job skills mentally.  Piloting anything... nope.  Repairing anything... no.  Computer operation... minimal.  Computer systems... not happening.  Culinary skills... I don't think so.  It seems than shooting things and making snappy comebacks to thugs are my only two marketable skills.  Maybe Adam had an opening in security.  I made a mental note to ask him.

   I had the computer run a search for Teri Reynolds and with variations of my first name, like Terri, Teresa, and Theresa.  I also included display the image in my search.  If I was there or here someplace, it would be nice to know where else I was.

   Finally, I called Adam to ask if he could join me for whatever meal they were serving at this time and if I could ask him a few more questions about this place.

You search the intranet for derivations of your name, but find none in the directory and their intranet seems lacking compared to the internet you've used on other worlds.

When you call Adam, you hear someone answer, spit, and then say, a bit groggily, "Dividius..." When you mention your name, he perks up. "Oh, Misty. Good to hear from you." ... "Breakfast? Yeah, lets." ... "Can you find your own way back to the cafeteria, or do you need me to come get you?"

...

And one way or another, you find yourself with Adam, in his uniform with A. Dividius in caps on his name pin and some subtler indications of his rank on his uniform you didn't notice yesterday. Today, it's the option of synthetic chicken eggs (Adam explains they're referring to the chickens, not the eggs) and some sausage with whole milk.

He engages you in polite small talk, "Did you sleep well?," while subtly dropping hints about how important he is around the Gemini. He shows you a tablet that he carries with him everywhere on board. "With this, I pretty much can work from anywhere, so we can take our time, but I try to be present at the actual office after breakfast."

   I smiled.  Adam might be a shaker and mover around here after all.  Maybe he was hiring.  "I slept well, thank you.  The tank was a bit awkward, but necessary.  I managed.  It's quite a change from sleeping under the stars to sleeping among the stars."

   Since he was in the mood to talk about how important he was and I was in the mood to learn all that I could, I asked him about things like his responsibilities and his security team.  I wasn't just making small talk.  I really wanted to know about him and his place here.  When I thought is was time, I asked my questions.

   I fished a hunk of the gold I had mined from my pocket and set in on the table between us.  "I am embarrassingly ignorant of this place and distressingly lacking in operating funds.  Does gold still have value at this time and is there a place where I can exchange it for credits?  If there isn't, I need a job.  The only thing I know is security work.  Are you hiring?"  I left out the part about my talent at snappy comebacks.  I figured it would be better that way.

Adam goes into detail about the security staff on board. Their duties are mostly boring work, keeping posts at certain parts of the facility that are private, patrolling the different parts of the station for trouble, and basically being available and watching and waiting until someone needs help. The Director here has also recently had us start tracking the vitals on dupes nearing expiration, but that's just so that any children on board don't have to see one expire.

Adam, after asking permission, picks up a piece of gold and whistles. "Yep, gold sells. You might consider posting it on the forums, once we get you a login ID. It might be more profitable if you leave it open for bidding instead of just selling it to the general market." He rolls the gold over in his hand and your words over in his mind. "You're used to security work...?"

He thinks it over, and places the gold back down. "I might be able to squeeze you in part time during the graveyard shift, if you pass our physical and marksman standards. Once the doc takes you off your oxygen, you can come by the security office and we'll test you out to see if you qualify. What sort of experience do you have?"

   "My experience?"  This was going to get interesting very quickly.  "I was a military policeman in the Army for a few years.  I liked the work, but the command structure didn't offer a lot of independence.  I became a shamus when I got out.  I've worked the usual missing family member cases, done some store security work, kept an eye on wandering husbands who found wives that weren't theirs, handled assaults and other crimes that families needed my special abilities to solve, the usual litany of what people like me do.  I've also worked as a bodyguard to a South American President's daughter, shipboard security on a colony starship, and I took down the leader of a cult of murder worshipers."

   I took out my leather wallet with my badge on the outside and my concealed carry permit and P.I. ticket inside.  I placed it on the table and pushed it toward Adam.  "Here's my Private Investigator's license and badge."  I waited for his response.

"Sounds like you've been everywhere, Misty. Stop by the office when you don't have to carry around that oxygen tank anymore, and you'll probably have work in no time, as long as you don't mind the graveyard shift."

Then, he changes the subject, "So, tell me something. I've read the reports already, but I'm trying to get my ducks in a row before that little boy you showed up with wakes up. Who is he? Did he say anything to you while you were down there with him?"

   "Everywhere?  Not yet, but I'm working on it."  I picked up my P.I. ID wallet and put it back in my pocket.  He didn't seem to notice the dates on my papers.  Or, if he did notice, it didn't bother him.  That didn't bother me.  "I'm looking forward to joining your team."

   He wanted to know about the kid.  So did I.  "The kid was sleeping when I got there.  He woke momentarily and thought I was his Mom.  He said that he missed us, which I can only guess that he meant Lucy and Charlie.  I told him to go back to sleep.  The only other time he spoke was when I was trying to call for help.  He told me that I wasn't his parents, then the bad air got to him."  I shrugged.  "The kid had been living there for a while.  Someone went to the trouble of making him some toys out of re-purposed station supplies and kid sized clothing out of adult sized garments.  That's all I've got.  Would it be allowed for me to go visit him?"

Most might have missed it, but as you mention that you think that the kid is probably Lucy and Charlie's, you see a brief and subtle change in Adam's composure for a moment, around his mouth and eyes. He is more focused, suspicious. But it relaxes almost immediately, and he shakes his head with his regular friendly smile, "That's impossible. The clones here are engineered to be sterile. They can't reproduce. But I don't see a problem with going to visit him when he wakes. I'll let his attending physician know you're interested, and they'll contact your room when he gains the strength."

Then, he looks down, opens his mouth, closes it, and says, "Listen...you feel better, but I need to go do the whole 'security thing'. I forgot about an appointment I really do have today." He excuses himself and throws his food out, leaving his tray in a pile forming near the waste units and walking out, in a little bit of a hurry.

   I watched Adam leave.  "Bye?"  He probably didn't hear me, though.  I'm not sure if Adam could have left any more quickly with a pair of Reeboks and a guy with a striped shirt and a starter's pistol.  What kind of problem would have Adam all but running from breakfast... Phillip K. Dick style replicants?

   I remembered a very popular film from Homeline about a very different kind of theme park where the creatures were genetically designed to not reproduce.  It didn't work out as originally planned.  I remember a phrase that Jeff Goldblum's character said, "Life finds a way."

   I stayed to finish my breakfast.  This traveler knows that when there is good food, you eat it because it might be a while until the next one.  Next, I planned on a visit to the medical facilities to get a fresh tank of oxygen and visit a sick kid.

You decide to visit the medical bay you had been to before, and the same secretary greets you with a smile, "Hello, Ms. Reynolds." She checks your oxygen tank herself, and asks one of the nursing assistants to give you a full one for the next day. She wants you to establish an appointment time for the following day with her, before she gives you the room number for the young boy you returned with, the Junior John Doe, or JJD until he wakes.

She shifts her glance a little both ways, but says that you're free to visit with him if you want to. "Just don't try to wake him. The doc says that it takes time to recover from the toxicity in his lungs. Rest and the advanced O2 bi-pap. But you can sit with him if you like."

Going into the room, you see that he's connected to a bedside pulsoximeter, which reads his heart rate and oxygen saturation (the oxygen in yellow at the moment at 85 and the pulse in the green). He also is connected to a bedside heart monitor, which mirrors his pulse rate with its familiar spikes of cardiac activity. He has a small oxygen mask over his face that wheezes with some cocktail of medicine being forced into his lungs at regular intervals.

His eyes have fewer dark spots, but he's still pale and resting regularly for now.

   I set up an appointment for the next day, as requested and head out with my shiny new best buddy.  From the nurse's side glances, I got the feeling that I'm not supposed to be here.  That is fine with me.  I've spent a majority of my adult life going places where I'm not wanted and meeting people who didn't want to talk to me.  If I were a more sensitive type of soul, I might even take it personally.

   The kid did look a bit better than when I last saw him.  Of course, that wouldn't have taken much.  He was in bad shape at the station.  I sat with him.  I had a day to kill and this kid was a whole bundle of unanswered questions.  Did I ever mention just how much I hate unanswered questions?

You sit with the boy for a long time, and the consistent beep of his heart rhythm is almost enough to relax you to calm down and get some rest yourself, but as you feel yourself starting to doze slightly, you see his little left hand move. The fingers curl, clench weakly, and relax again.

Then, you see his eyes open, and they groggily start searching the ceiling for answers, before they find you. His eyes open wider, and he tries to talk over the sound of the mask on his face. "Where's my..." you see him finish his question, mouthing what you think is mom to you.

   I reached over to hold his hand.  I'm not going to lie to a kid, but that doesn't mean that I have to tell him everything all at once.  It also doesn't help me much when I don't even know where that part of everything starts.  "Your Mom isn't here.  Try to go back to sleep for a while so the medicine the Doctor gave you can have time to work."

He starts tearing up, but calms relatively quickly, gripping your hand as he does. He looks at you confused for a second. "Who is Doctor? Who are you? And when does mom come back?"

He looks around the room, actually turning his head so that the mask loosens a little bit on his face. You see that his heart rate is higher, still in the green though, and his oxygen is up to almost 90, still in the yellow.

   I smiled at the kid.  Maybe we could both get some answers.  "A Doctor is a person who helps you get better if you are sick or hurt.  My name is Misty.  I don't know your Mom.  If you tell me her name and some things about her, maybe I can help you find out what happened."

He nods. "I want you to find her. She's nice. And she's tall, but Dad's taller. She's Lucy and he's Chuck. Her hair is long, past her ears. Dad's is too, but not as much. Hers is really long." He uses his free hand to show you that it drops a little past the shoulders for Lucy.

The description so far matches the image you'd seen at the station. Same for Chuck being Charlie, but the child's descriptions aren't exactly specific.

"Will you find them for me?"

   Lucy and Charlie were the names of the workers on the helium station.  This wasn't looking very good for the kid.  "I've never met them, Kiddo, but I'll ask around and see what I can find out.  Ummm, I really shouldn't keep calling you Kiddo since you probably have your own name.  What did your Mom and Dad name you?"

He looks down at his feet when you tell him that you're going to look into it, but lies back. "Gabe..." He says, and closes his eyes again.

   I waited a few more minutes to make sure that Gabe was asleep.  I used the time to think about what I had learned.  As usual, what I didn't know outweighed what I did know.  And as usual, I was going to have to figure it out somehow.  On one hand, the copies have been created to be sterile.  On the other hand, a non-versing humanoid child identified his parents as the copies assigned to station maintenance of a remote mining station on an environmentally hostile planet.

   I took a deep breath of oxygen augmented air to try to clear my head.  It wasn't working.  I still had two equally unlikely possibilities.  It was time to do what I did best... other than shoot things.  I headed out to find the nurse.  I needed to find out more about these copies.

In the hallway, you see the nurse carrying a similar tablet to the doctor the day before, but blue like the scrubs she's wearing. She just finished in the room next door, and you encounter her outside of Gabe's room.

She looks surprised to see someone stepping out of the room, but smiles at you. "Oh! How may I help you, ma'am?"

   "Hello.  I just stopped by to see how the kid is doing."  I motioned to my tag-a-long air bottle.  "We came up from the surface together, both of us suffering from sucking in too much contaminated air."  I paused a moment.

   "I was wondering if you could help me.  I've never been around these what do you call them... duplicates, before.  Can you suggest a good place to go to learn more about them, things like how they came about and how they are manufactured?  If I know more about them, maybe I would feel more at ease around them."  And it would give me a start looking into just how this might have come about.

"Oh, the boy...his vital signs are still low, but they are improving. Sadly, he hasn't returned to consciousness yet. Tell me something...you were down there with him... I hate calling him 'the boy' all the time. Did you ever know his name? Or would you be able to find it out, so that we can update his medical data and know what to call him when he finally wakes?"

"I would suggest making your way to the Research wing. The primary focus of the scientists is research involving Jupiter's extra energy and some gasses that can be used as fuel. But that isn't all we do. One of the biggest projects aside from that is probably cloning. Those guys are always interested in getting a young lady's attention with their latest invention or discovery." She gives you a wink.

   "As to the Kid's name?  I'll see what I can find out.  Can you get a message to me when he wakes?  It might help him to have a familiar face around.  And, can you point me in the general direction of the Research wing?  I'm still learning my way around."

   Once I got directions of how to find the Research wing, I headed back to my room to sign on in order to apply for my own user ID and to see about posting an advertisement to auction off six ounces of gold nuggets.  I also planned on looking up information on the research wing personnel and what biographical information there was available on them.  It couldn't hurt to know a little about the people I was planning on seeing.

"Sure, ma'am. I'll make sure that we send you a notification if anything changes." She takes down your room number, when you state that you don't have a station ID yet, and she gives you directions to the Research Wing, which actually proves to be more like an entire separate part of the station. Still, she tells you where you can go to get access to the public parts of the Research Wing.

When you return to your room, you find that your identity is searchable now, but has virtually no information other than what you gave them the other day. After answering a security question that you put on your medical forms, you're able to make an ID name and choose to set your information to "private" instead of "public" if you want to.

When it comes to choosing an ID, what name would you like to pick? It's more like a screen name, so there's a bit of wiggle room for creativity and anonymity (though you may choose to keep your name public separately from your information under your username-optional anonymity). When you do your research, you also notice that other IDs have flags on them, and you realize that they're marked as dupes by the icon. Your ID does not have that icon.

You look through the "official" forum pages for non-dupes only, but under the completely open craigslist-style page, you find that you are able to auction and set a closing date for the auction. You just need to pick how many days you want it to stay on, and it'll close ad midnight on the last day.

Your research on the Research wing personnel is mostly inconclusive, because of the sheer amount of information. It looks like hundreds of personnel are employed in the Research department of this station, and they all have the same information. You find pictures up for most, as well as a brief biography for some. Mostly, though, you just got a lot of names with acronyms following them to distinguish exactly how special their degrees are.

   I thought about what identification to be known as for probably far longer than I should have.  I considered variations of my profession, like Galactic Gumshoe and Star Shamus.  I considered using some variation of a literary character, but I didn't know if I could live with Jessica Rabbit or V.I. Warshawski.  I finally settled for something totally strange, Unkempt Wombat.

   I went ahead and posted an offer to sell six troy ounces of gold on the local version of Craigslist with a closing date of a week.  I know that I will have missed the ordering window for supplies, but at least it would give me some operating capital for as long as I am here.

   I gave up researching the researchers as a lost cause.  All my findings told me was that a lot of people worked in research.  I needed to go meet some of them, after lunch.

During lunch, you're offered some steak, which you're informed is normally a delicacy on the Gemini, but due to some research in cell growth and cloning, they've managed to grow even specific portions of meat. "No animals were harmed in the cultivation of this beef" seems to be the ad they're going to push through later.

You also have options of fresh fruit as well: green or red apple or banana today.

----

But regardless of cuisine, you eventually find yourself to the public sector of the research wing, after lunch. There's a short and stout secretary with a grim expression as you approach. Eyeballing you with a board expression, she asks, "Yes?"

   I had a banana.  I like bananas.

   What I wasn't liking was the woman sitting at the desk.  I've never had much luck getting past traditional battleaxe types.  They just sit there, supremely confident in their positions of authority in their small universes, secure in their ability to control everything in their domain, and prepared to repel all invaders assaulting their kingdoms.  As a professional pest, I'm exactly the kind of person they have been placed to defend against.

   I decided to go with trying it casually.  Sometimes it works.  I walked over to the desk.  "Hello, I'm Misty.  I'd like to talk to someone about dupes."

She raises her eyebrows slightly and lowers her head. "Dupes?" She shakes her head and closes her eyes, but you can see that she rolls them under her eyelids. "Do you mean cloning? You want to talk to someone researching cloning?"

She sighs, but points around her desk without rising. She supplies you with an office number for a Doctor Rose Farragut and gives you specific directions with a pointed finger town the hallway behind her desk without ever leaving her seat somehow. "There are two labs on the way, so make sure you don't enter any rooms that you aren't supposed to if you don't want to grow extra limbs."

She also gives you a lanyard from behind her desk. "Day pass."

   I accepted the day pass and put it around my neck.  The extra limbs thing was probably supposed to be a joke.  I resisted the urge to ask her what you get when you serve frozen dairy products to dupes.  I'm not sure she would have liked the answer.

   "Thank you for the information and the pass.  I don't know, though, there have been times when having an extra set of hands could have been very useful..."  The mental image flashing across my mind of me as a modern version of Kali, wielding my PDW, Glock, and a couple of swords at the same time caused me to smile.  "But then, I have a difficult enough of a time accessorizing my outfits as it is."

   I headed deeper into the research wing to look for a particularly numbered office for a Doctor Rose Farragut and a few answers.

You walk to Dr. Rose Farragut's office, following those strict directions. You see no windows as you proceed through the research area. The hallways here are even cleaner than the rest of the facility. The rest of the facility you've seen has been clean, but this is pristine. If the floors were any whiter, you might fall through the open space under you.

Labs 1 and 2 she mentioned are clearly labeled, closed, with red markers reading "Occupied", similar to portable bathrooms. Eventually, you come to a row of offices. Most are closed, but next to Doctor Rose Farragut's clearly labeled office, you see an open door. A woman in blue pants and a shirt with some clever mathematical expression that resembles a dog is facing away from you, looking away from you at a clear glass pane with words, formulas, and pictures of molecules and what look like ladders strewn across it.

   I felt like making some scuff marks on the floor of the research wing as I walked.  I wasn't just feeling perverse, although perverse is something I do very well.  I was out of baked goods, so leaving a trail of bread crumbs to find my way back was out.

   The Doc looked really busy.  I went in anyway.  "Excuse me, Doctor Farragut.  My name is Misty Reynolds.  I was wondering if you could spare me a few minutes of your time."

She jumps when you say her name, and drops her marker. She looks back at you sternly, and flips a switch on the side of the glass pane, making the words disappear like magic.

She straightens up, "Certainly. But you can probably find out about more during one of our public forums. What subject are you interested in? I can direct you to any equipped to answer your questions."

   I wasn't sure how to start this dance started.  I had two equally unlikely possibilities to investigate.  All I could do was ask some questions and see what kind of answers came back.  The Doc looked like a shaker and mover around here.  I decided to try nice for once, just to see how it worked.

   I smiled my meeting a rich client smile.  "Thank you for your time.  I have a problem which I'm trying to solve.  Any information you can provide would be most helpful.  I'm interested in learning as much as I can about the topic of clone reproductive systems."

She crosses her arms. "Well, that is a complicated and specific subject to inquire about, that goes all the way to genetic manipulation of RNA and DNA strands we use during the cloning process. Just to get the foundation to understand the nature would take probably at least four years of studying genetics and another four studying the application. But, simply put, we isolate and rearrange the DNA so that it can't combine to produce offspring in the traditional way. Otherwise, their organs are fully functional."

After the brief answer, she blinks as if waking up. "Why do you ask?"

   That was a very good question.  Why was I asking?  Did I want to blow the lid off of some kind of illegal replicant modification technology?  Was there an underground movement here that needs to exposed to the light of an artificial day?  Or, was it about a kid named Gabe, laying in a hospital bed and wondering what happened to his parents?

   "I told a friend of mine that I would ask a few questions on his behalf.  What I do is a lot like what you do.  I ask questions and try to find answers that make sense."  Gabe was my client for what would probably turn out to be another pro bono publico case.  I sighed.  I really need to find clients who can pay a retainer.

"Well, I was glad to answer at least a few, Miss Reynolds, but this is time I really do need to be spending on my work. Perhaps if you make an appointment for another time, I will have more time and attention for your questions."

She picks up the utensil she was using to write on the glass before, but doesn't write anything and leans against her desk, waiting.

   I recognize what being dismissed looks like.  A lot of people want to get rid of me.  I don't take it personally since it's part of the job.  "Thank you for your time.  If I have more questions, I will make an appointment."  I excused my self and exited the room.

   I still had more questions than answers.  I headed back to my room to check on the gold auction and read up on some of the public forums the Doc had mentioned.

As a courtesy, she replies, "My pleasure" and returns to her work as you exit the room. When you're halfway down the hall, you hear her door shut.

So far on the gold auction, there hasn't been any activity. You see that a few people have viewed your auction, but none have bid yet.

When you investigate the public forums, what information are you hoping to glean during your research?

   I spent most of the rest of the afternoon looking up the basics of cloning.  From what I was able to determine, clones were designed to be sterile, just as the Doc had said.  That didn't explain Gabe, though.

   I shut the terminal down.  My brain was about two paragraphs away from exploding due to information overload.  I decided to go visit Gabe.  Maybe he would be in a more talkative state.

You look into cloning, and you find a basic Q&A about what cloning is, which is what is to be expected. Cloning is where genetic material is taken from a donor, often the researchers themselves, and copied to create duplicates, often referred to as "dupes". Dupes don't have to grow, because the clones are created from an already-aged human being. Due to the cloning process and the genetic manipulation, dupes cannot reproduce.

You find an additional article on chromosomal distribution and the difference between those in dupes and regular people, but by the end you're overloaded with information.

But you look at one more, on a hunch. It's a political paper written, you see, in Seattle on Earth. The writer explains the crimes against nature performed by cloning, and that cloning has since become illegal on the surface. He trashes these "criminal organizations" profiting from "government-established" loopholes to continue this illegal and unethical research in space stations beyond Earth's gravitational pull.

So, with a headache and a lot of new information on cloning, you step out and take a walk to the medical wing where Gabe is being kept. A new shift is working now, sitting at computers and rounding on patients. You go straight to Gabe's room, and find that the room is empty and completely clean. There's even a fresh trash bag in the can and crisp, white sheets on the bed.

   I immediately head to the nurse's station to ask what happened to the patient.  All kinds of possibilities are running through my mind.  I don't really like any of them very much.

The unit coordinator you encounter this time has a completely different demeanor from the friendly day-shifter you met. She has bags under her eyes, quietly glares at you as you approach, and when you finally do ask you every possible question to make it just a little more difficult.

"What room number?"

"And what was the patient's name?"

"What was your relation to the patient in that room?"

Until finally she says, as a complete answer, "Nope."

   I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  "The Security Chief Adam asked me to find out what I could about the boy.  I'd like to keep this informal, but if we really need to open an official investigation, we can do the staff interviews at the Security Office during your off time and the poking through all of your medical records to determine if anything untoward has happened.  I don't think we will disrupt your operation too much.  It is your call."

The unit coordinator's attitude turns even more sour, if possible, and replies, "Excuse me, ma'am, but we don't have any information on any patient by that name, let alone a record of him being here today, which is already more information than I should be giving a random woman coming up to the desk and demanding to know about a patient she has no relation to on supposed authority of the Chief of Security who for some reason wanted to send a random civilian to look into this instead of one of his own officers."

   I smiled at her.  I hoped that would tick her off even more than the rudeness she was expecting and probably yearned for.  "Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.  I'll be in touch."   Now I had an even bigger problem.  My client is missing.  To solve this, I needed a local badge.  Fortunately, I knew where to get one.

   I wheeled my little metal follower behind me as I headed to the mess hall to get a bite to eat.  I hoped they still had bananas.  Did I already mention that I like bananas?

The woman humphs at you as you exit, and you hear her start talking to someone else at the desk as you go. "I don't care; no info means no info, don't you have a new admit to see?"

In the cafeteria, you find that they still have bananas, but fewer. They've rotated out apples in exchange for oranges for people to snack on for a fruit. You don't see Adam or any other familiar people there as you snack down.

   I knew it.  Someone people had Gabe and they were keeping it a secret.  I had my suspicions who was behind this official cover-up.  I just needed to be able to prove who it was.  I need to follow the evidence.  And as soon as I find some... I will.

   I thought about swiping a second banana with dinner, but I didn't.  Truth be told, dinner wasn't sitting very well in my stomach.  Somebody had taken taken a sick kid from his hospital bed and for whatever reason the medics were going along with it.  Somebody with a lot of juice was making this happen.  I was going to do my best to find out who this somebody was and get Gabe back.

   Tomorrow, first thing, I had an appointment with the same medical people to get rid of this two wheeled shadow I was dragging behind me.  Maybe I would get more answers then.  After that, I had another appointment to make and keep, a job interview.

Heading down to the medical wing, you find a new dayshift secretary who seems to still be energetically acclimating to her job. She greets you after looking through some binders for a moment, "Yes, may I help you, ma'am?"

That's only the first strange thing, though. You notice that the nurses don't look familiar from this unit, as they had the day before.

   I remembered a line from a book called Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.  I read it in my home timeline before any of this serial reincarnation or versing stuff began.  "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”  It seemed somehow appropriate here.

   The medical staff was all new.  There could be a simple explanation for this.  The new people on duty might be due to a simple rotational shift of days off.  The people might be sleeping in.  They could be off imbibing frosty alcoholic beverages somewhere.  They might all return in a couple of days rested and refreshed.  But I didn't think so.

   "Yes, you can help me.  I need to turn in my oxygen tank.  Oh, and I wanted thank a very helpful nurse from yesterday.  Can you give her number so I can thank her personally?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:20, Mon 15 Dec 2014.

"I'm not sure who it was... I actually just got transferred here today," she says with a smile. "I've always wanted to work on this unit."

They schedule you to meet with the same physician you saw the other day, though, who steps in and assesses your oxygen level and examines other vital signs a different unfamiliar nurse gathered in the private hospital room. The doctor looks at you and says, "Yes, looks like all good news. You've recovered fully from the gas poisoning, Miss Reynolds. Leave your friend in here, and here are discharge instructions." She hands you a piece of paper. "Essentially, just take it easy the next few days. Your endurance might be lackluster, and pushing yourself could cause lightheadedness. If that happens, you know where to go." Then, she turns to leave the room.

   I thanked the Doc, telling her that I would take it easy.  I don't know if my version of easy matched hers, though.  On my way out, I also thanked the nurse for her help.  Then, just to be conversational, I asked, "I'm glad you got this assignment.  Where did you work before you started here?"

   I headed to my next stop, the security office.  I need a job and a badge and more importantly, a way to get some answers.  Truth be told, I also wanted to see what this place used for weapons and get my sticky little fingers on some of them, legally of course.

"Oh, I was just a files clerk in medical records. I've been scouring these dayshift jobs for months looking for openings, but suddenly a unit coordinator position appeared, so here I am! I never imagined how much work really went into it, though." She gestures at a thick book with medical wing codes, phone numbers, and policies inside, offering you a little smile.

You find your way to the main security headquarters through a satellite office. You meet an amiable desk officer who directs you to the headquarters, and finds a message left by Adam. "Ah, yes. The Chief has been expecting you. First, we'll do strength and endurance testing, marksmanship, and have one of our shrinks perform a psyche eval. You'll be allowed to wear your own workout attire and use yoru own weapon or a service weapon for testing purposes. Apparently, your physical condition has already been assessed, according to the database, so you should be fine to serve...if you pass the rest. Are you sure you're ready to start today, Miss Reynolds?"

   Inside I'm whooping and fist pumping.  I wonder if they still do that.  Outside, I respond, "The Doc says I shouldn't push the endurance angle too hard for a couple more days, but I'm ready for the strength, marksmanship, and psych evaluations.  What do you use for service weapons out here?  I was just wondering because I don't want to damage any range backstops.  Also, in using my own gear, I have a concern that getting reloads for my stuff might be a problem."  And I could see if any of their toys would make a nice addition to my collection.

   I had no idea of that people wore to work out here.  I went with a logical, and in this case truthful answer.  "As to the workout gear, I'm fine with what I'm wearing, blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and crosstrainers.  I've found that the bad guys don't generally wait for you to change clothes before doing something stupid.  I'm ready when you are.  I just need to get my go to belt gun from my room if we're doing marksmanship first."  I wondered what he would think about my PDW.

"The service weapons we have are twenty-calibur pistols. Most of the time, security personel are instructed to use those as a last resort and use stun batons first in all encounters, but you'll get that during orientation and training before you are out on your own."

"Some of the guys carry larger calibur weapons like your 40s and 375s, but they have to get them shipped in regularly."

He smiles at your comment on how bad guys don't wait. "We can start with that no problem. Let me take you to the small range we have. You'll have to pass with a handgun. Have you chosen between your weapons or a service weapon?" He shows you the twenty-cal pistol he carries, which has only a few minor design differences to weapons you've seen, with a small metal sight on the top and the clip still loaded from the bottom.

   I thought about my PDW.  Firing armor piercing rounds on a space station might not be a really good idea.  "I'll try your service weapon first, as long as you let me put a couple of mags through it to get the feel of how it handles."  There had to be a reason why they used a twenty caliber round.  I planned on finding out why on the range.

He hands you one of their weapons, which you find to be extremely light, just slightly heavier with the rounds inside. The pistol, he informs you, holds 15 plus one in the chamber. He has you wear goggles and ear plugs for protection, but it's hardly necessary with the weapon.

The kick is almost nonexistent, much like a .22, but flies a little crooked with the aim on the gun, but it isn't anything that you haven't accounted for by your fifth shot, when all of your starts start hitting the chest, most inside the two closest rings.

When you finish with a clip, he whistles, "That was some fine shooting, if I may say so." For the test, he has you shoot at increasing ranges at a similar target, a black silhouette with circles inside the head and chest.

OOC: Your roll was well enough for you to describe the results, if you'd like. Good shooting before the test followed by perfect shooting during the test.

   I thanked him for the praise then asked if I could practice one more thing, a mag drill, before I fired my qualification round.  He gave me a strange look, but he gave permission.  Maybe they call it a reloading drill or something different in this place.  I loaded two rounds in each of four magazines.  I loaded the first mag and got ready.

   On the range hot signal, I fired one round at the head circle and one round at the chest circle.  I punched the spent mag out, pushed the next two round mag into the pistol, released the slide, and fired those rounds into the head and chest.  I repeated the drill for the remaining mags.  After the last mag, against my better nature, I left the slide back and ejected the spent mag, leaving both pistol and mag on the counter.  I had one flier.  I was still getting the feel of the reloading process.

   I told the guy, "It's got a nice feel, a natural point, and almost no recoil.  The mag and slide releases are well placed.  This is a nice piece.  I'll use this for the qualification.  Let's do this."

   I love firing ranges.  A lot of the members of my gender think they are loud and stinky places full of testosterone fueled macho creeps.  Well, yeah, they are loud without proper hearing protection and there can be a few guys around who could stand to work on their social skills.  Still, I don't know of a more relaxing place.  It's the purity of it all.  There's no client, no telephone, nobody shooting back at you...  It's peaceful.  The world shrinks to just you, the pistol, and the target.  It is where I feel at home.

   The qualifier explained the course.  I realized that it wasn't a Hogan's Alley.  I wouldn't be firing left and right barricade positions.  I wouldn't be using my off hand.  I would be shooting at the two circles from different distances.  I grabbed the required number of loaded mags.  I loaded the pistol and chambered the first round.  The spare mags were positioned on the counter in front of me.  I took a deep breath, let half of it out, and said "Ready."

   I remember firing the first few shots at the seven meter mark and then the range clear signal.  Other than that, nothing.  I waited for my score.  The guy seemed to be taking a long, long time to tabulate my score.  I hoped that I passed.

He comes back out after he's finished with your test in his office. While you wait, he has you answer a very brief test on gun safety with some obvious questions translated from basic gun safety to situations that are space station-specific. You're pretty sure you do fine. He tells you, "Now, I can't give you your scores until after you've completed all of the tests and the chief examines the results. But if it were based on this alone, you'd have no trouble getting in." He winks at you, then takes you back to the main office.

"The strength test and endurance test are actually one in the same, with scores based on performance during an obstacle course and exercises after. They have to be done the same day, so let's make an appointment now for that. It's Wednesday now...so let's say Friday, wrap it up before Saturday?"

Once that's settled, he moves on to the psyche evaluation. "It's a written test and an interview with a contract psychiatrist." He phones to see if a certain Doctor is in at the moment. "Turns out Doctor Laughter is actually in his office right now, so we'll have to make an appointment. Does any time today work for you?" He's currently sitting with the phone to his ear, making your appointment for you.

   This was working out fairly well.  I wondered when things were going to go South.  I guess I'm a glass is half empty kind of person.  I'm always waiting for something to go wrong.  Some might call it a self fulfilling prophecy.  I call it human nature.

   "Does Doctor Laughter have any time right now?"

The security officer keeps on the phone for another minute, and frowns. "Sorry, they say he'll stay for one more appointment today, but it'll be at the end of the day. You'll probably have to wait at the office until after his 5 o'clock."

   "That's fine.  I'll grab an early dinner, then go see the Doctor.  Assuming that the Doctor gives his go ahead, when and where do you want me to report on Friday?"  I'm a dimensional vagrant, a wanderer through time and space.  I'll just tell him the truth and I should pass with flying colors.  What could go wrong?

"You can come right back here." He winks. "The obstacle course is a short walk away and you need access to get through." He gestures to his badge when he says 'access'. You've seen badges, small laminated things clipped on, all over the station and people swiping them to enter certain secured sections of the station.

Dr. Laughter's appointments take forever to finish up, but you hear laughter coming from the other room occasionally while you wait. Finally, the patient steps out with a young man in his late twenties. He has a short, brown beard and glasses that make his face remind you of an owl's.

He turns his eyes to you after the patient exits and says, "Miss Reynolds, I presume? Step inside, and let's begin with introductions. I'm Dr. Laughter. You can call me Jud, if you'd like. Please, tell me about yourself."

His office is relatively small as he leads you back into it. There is a stereotypical couch to lay down on, but there are also other chairs in the room. One stiff four-legged thing in front of his desk matching the one behind his desk, a rocker and a very fluffy recliner. He waits for you to choose a place before he moves.

   "Yes, I am Teri Reynolds, but I go by Misty.  Hello.  I'm looking to join the security unit and I need your approval to do so."  Jud was a good first name.  At least his first name didn't start with an S.  I'm not sure I could work with a guy named Doctor S. Laughter and keep a straight face.

   Even the chairs were a type of mental exam.  I thought this was a nice touch.  I took the business looking one in front of his desk.  I placed my feet flat on the floor and my hands on my thighs in what I hoped was a non-aggressive manor.  "What did you wish to talk about?"



OOC:  About the name?  http://www.tshirthell.com/funn...ter-without-laughter

"Well, I want to talk about you. I'm a safety net to make sure that you won't do drugs or kill anyone on the station. Why don't we begin with basic background? Do you or your family have any known mental illnesses, including psychotic episodes or anything that could lead to a lapse in judgment?"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:58, Mon 05 Jan 2015.

   This was not going to be easy.  "I'm an ex-military police officer who got a private investigator's license when I got out.  Like you, I help people with problems they can't solve by themselves.  I've also done some bodyguard work.  As to the lapse in judgement thing, there was this cousin that talked to his car.  Also, I dated a guy in a garage band, but that was in high school, so I don't think it counts."

His eyes widen with interest when you mention working as a private investigator and how you help people, and the whites of his teeth show as he laughs at your last statement. "No, I think we can overlook that, if that's the worst you've done, Misty. Let's move on to drugs. Have you ever used or been addicted to any drugs or other perception-altering substances? And if so, have you used any of them within the last six months?"

   I couldn't help but smile.  "My only addictions are coffee and chocolate.  And yes, I have indulged in them today.  Sorry, but I don't live a very interesting life."  So far...  So good...

He runs a hand through his beard after writing more down on a page in front of him. A warm smile curls in his beard again at your statement. "Well, that's good. There are worse things than being dull; however," he looks back up at you, "I doubt an ex-MP turned private investigator can really claim that. Why don't you tell me about that? Do you find your work as a private investigator to be more fulfilling than your work with the military?"

As a follow-up question after you answer, he asks you to tell him about your best and worst experiences in your professions.

   I had to think for a moment.  "Well as a PI I got to choose my own cases.  I got to pick my own hours.  And If I wanted to take a day off, the boss was very understanding.  As an MP, I was a part of a vast organization with greater resources than I could ever muster on my own.  You ask a difficult question.  It's like asking which is better, apples or oranges.  Each is good in it's own way."

   "As to the best and worst cases..."  I needed to mentally run through my cases.  "The worse case was a protection shakedown operation.  The targets were too scared to go to the cops, but they came to me for help.  Some shop owners were killed, despite my best efforts to stop the thugs."

   "And my best case was a bodyguard job.  I was hired to protect the seven year old daughter of a South American leader.  I kept Lily alive and exposed the older family members who were using outsiders to try to kill the kid because she was her Father's favorite."

He watches your face with a certain precise intensity as you answer his questions, and writes a few additional notes down while you talk. He's practiced, it seems, at keeping up his end of the conversation while jotting down notes concerning it. "It sounds like you've lived a fascinating life, Misty. Do you have any passions-hobbies-other than protecting the innocent and tracking down bad guys? What do you do to unwind?"

   "Well, I like to travel.  I took a working vacation as a security officer on a ship one time.  I was getting paid to take a trip on a passenger ship."  Just because it was it was traveling between worlds at the time...  "It was great.  I got to hit a gym with the absolute latest in fitness gear.  I got to eat a lot of food that didn't come between two slices of bread or in a cardboard carton.  I also experienced some different cultures and learned quite a bit about them, and myself."

"Very interesting. You called your life dull, but you've clearly had your share of adventures, with more to come. I think it's about time to wrap things up here. It's a very nice change of pace to meet such a...open book, like yourself." He gives you a knowing smile. "One last thing before we call it quits, though. Have you worked with dupes before? Sometimes their actions can be unexpected, especially when they near their expirations."

   "I've never worked with dupes before I arrived here."  Open book?  Whatever.  "Do you want to know the worst thing about my life?  My only regret is that I never get to see what comes afterward.  Like when I saved Lily from being murdered by some of her own family, I never found out what happened next.  I got paid nicely for my efforts and was sent on my way.  Nobody wants a reminder of their former troubles hanging around."

   I should have just shut up, but then I've never been good at that.  "Or take this place, for example.  When my time here is up, I'll be on my way somewhere else to go do something else.  I'm a professional gypsy.  I travel light.  Everything I own is in my backpack.  No entanglements...  no roots...  no..."  I stopped myself.  "...problems."

He jots something down, but when you continue after you answer about the dupes, he places his paper down and leans forward, showing a deeper interest. "No problems..." he reiterates. "Did you know that we tried to use greenhouses on the surface of Jupiter, pumping carbon dioxide into the air and recycling the produced oxygen for our dupes on the surface?"

He points at a potted plant in the room-some fern. "We tried corn, potatoes, bushes for grapes...Heck, we even tried to transplant kudzu down, but the soil caused too much damage to them. But we kept at it, worked the soil and treated it well, and eventually we got larger plants to actually take to the soil, starting with a fruit, technically a berry. It had a strange effect where the 'tree' that grew them developed thorns, but the roots gripped harder into the soil and deep. They led to botanically engineering other plants to do the same, so many of our fruits and vegetables on the Gemini are actually grown on the surface."

Then, he leans back. "But I've gone on, and I apologize. I don't see any reason that anything you've said should reflect poorly to the Security Officers, but I'll submit my conclusions electronically to Chief Dividius. Would you like a copy as well?"

   "This kind of reminds me of an old joke about a couple on a date.  He has just spent the last two hours listening to her talking nonstop about her family, her friends, her cats, her job, and her wardrobe.  Finally, she says, 'But enough about me.  Let's talk about you.  What do you think of me?'"  I waited for a moment for his response, then continued.  "Yes, I would like to see the report.  I know how things work on the inside of my head.  It might be interesting to see how things appear from the outside."

He chuckles at your joke. "It comes with the territory, I suppose."

Then, "I'll be sure to send it to your account electronically once I've completed it." He rises, and opens the door for you to exit through. "Have a good rest of the night, and try to remember that roots don't just grow problems." He makes sure to get the last comment in before the door opens.

   I couldn't help but mutter, "Yeah, they do." as the door to the Doctor's office closed.  I had the rest of the day to myself.  The physical portion wasn't until later.  I headed back to my room to check on any activity with my gold offering.  I also wanted to check into what else I could find out about anti-dupe organizations.

On your way back to your room, you hear a security alert overhead to return to quarters immediately.

"Danger in your area. Please return to quarters immediately." It's an automated message that repeats, flashing red lights around you along the ceiling. You see people who were walking the passages of the ship immediately drop what they were doing and rush-but not run-to their respective safe quarters.

  I've never been one to run away from trouble.  I generally run toward it.  There seems to be no reason to change that personality quirk this late in life.  I immediately begin to head toward the security office.

You pass by your living quarters to go to the security office the way that you know, and you find two gaunt men, one holding a wrench while the other is unarmed. They have blue jumpsuits and handyman belts on. They look pale and their cheeks jut out obtrusively. Their eyes are sunken, but fill with confusion and then rage as they notice you round the corner.

You hear the same automated message blare over the intercom. "Danger in your area. Please return to quarters immediately."

   I think I've found the problem.  These guys are probably dupes and are out of control.  I've only got my Glock with about fifty rounds on me at the moment.  The rest of my weapons and ammunition are on the other side of that door.

   Taking special care to stay back, I drew the Glock and thumbed off the safety.  I already know there's a live round under hammer.  There's always a live round under the hammer.  That is one way I stay alive.  I pointed the Glock at them and called out, "Hi, guys.  Do you mind dropping the wrench and both going away?  I've had a really busy day and I don't want you clowns darkening my doorstep any longer."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:39, Fri 09 Jan 2015.

It may have been lost in my description, or unclear. These guys are very close to where your living quarters are, maybe ten yards away. On the other hand, the security office still a good ten minute power walk away from your current location. Do you want to change anything about your post?

The unarmed man rakes his hands through his hair hard, pulling out tufts. He shakes his head violently like a dog playing tug of war with a sock.

The other man, the one with the wrench, looks out the ground for a moment and looks peaceful, but tilts his head up and locks eyes with you angrily. He raises his wrench and starts darting toward you like a mad man.

   I rapid fire three rounds into Mister Badwrench's chest.  I'm going for the heart, but I'll take upper center mass.  If he keeps coming, I keep shooting.  Once he goes down, I'll take a moment or two to put a couple into his buddy's head.

The three rounds explode in the chest of Mister Badwrench, pushing him back slightly, but he continues to try and move forward to you, screaming now! You see that as he screams blood is now coming out his mouth and there's a wheezing sound in his voice.

The other jerks his head up at the sound, and now there's no confusion or question in his eyes as he looks at you and his companion. Mr. Badwrench and he both charge now.

   Misty fired four rounds more.  The first two flew toward the head of Mister Badwrench.  The next two flew toward his associate's head.

You fire two quick shots, and hit the chin and forehead of the wrench-wielding man. He falls flat after that, and you whirl your gun quickly to your second assailant, who closes the distance fast. One shot goes wild and hits the beef of his neck as he finally closes on you. One hand grips your shooting wrist like a manacle, while he gropes for your throat with the other.

His skin is feverish and you see beads of sweat now on the face that surrounds his wild eyes.

   "Moron..."  I grab his loose wrist, using the force of his charge to roll backwards and using my feet to propel him over and past me.  With him momentarily out of my face, I plan to shape a mental pain spike and let it fly at my dance partner.  That should buy myself a few moments to retrieve my Glock.

You grab his loose wrist and you seen him flying over you, but his manacle-grip doesn't cease so you follow him partway. But now you're on top, as you send a pain spike stabbing through him. He shouts out in agony and shakes slightly, releasing your wrist and letting you grab your gun. You hear several hurried footsteps coming from farther down the hall, in the direction of the security offices.

   I put two into Buddy's head at close range.  I shoved the Glock back into its rig and moved away from the Badwrench and Buddy.  I made a mental note to swap out for a full mag as soon as I got the chance... which given the footsteps might be a little while.

You see a squad of security officers, all in semi-tactical body armor. They carry batons and buckler-sized plastic shields. All have black helmets that read "Security", and you recognize the man in the middle leading the group. He's exchanged the baton, which is at his hip, for a handgun.

It's Adam Dividius. The other officers start shouting at you to drop your weapon and step toward the wall. Adam, on the other hand, examines the scene before him-you with your weapon and the two men shot dead on the floor.

   I slowly and deliberately raise my hands into the air.  "This was a case of self defense.  My weapon is in my shoulder rig.  I'm going to slowly draw it out with two fingers and carefully lay it on the ground.  It's an antique..."  Technically, so am I, but not everybody needs to know that.  "and I don't want to damage it."

They allow you to slowly place your weapon on the floor, after Adam nods to them. Then, they command you to go, face the wall, and keep your palms against it.

Adam steps over to you, his weapon now holstered, while the other officers are making a perimeter and knocking on doors in the area. One still has his gun out and he's facing your direction. No one has touched the weapon you placed on the ground yet, but it's on the other side of the attentive officer.

Adam addresses you, "Misty, are you still armed?" If so, he asks you to remove any other weapons you have on you.

After, he asks, "Why don't you start with telling me what went down?" He glances over at the two bodies on the ground.

   Surprisingly, all I had on me was the Glock.  If Badwrench and Buddy had shown up a few minutes later, I would still be removing weapons.  "Just the pistol.  Do I still need to hold the wall up?"

   Now as to what happened, I'm the victim for once... sort of.  "I heard the alarm and the warning to go to my quarters.  My room is right over there.  I rounded the corner and saw these two standing right next to my door.  One of them had that big wrench.  They both looked ill, so I kept back and asked them to move away.  That one started to rip his hair out.  They both charged me.  I put three into Wrench Guy's chest and two in his head before he went down.  I winged two at his buddy, but I only hit him once in the neck.  He grabbed my gun arm.  I rolled backwards flipping him over and behind me.  That disoriented him enough for me to put two into his head.  I heard you coming, so I put my pistol away.  And here we are."

   "Before you ask, I was not in fear for my life.  Seriously, would you be?  I had a pistol which I have been well trained to use.  I attempted to get them to leave peacefully and only fired when attacked.  Is there anything else you need?"

He prompts that you're okay to move away from the wall, and listens to your explanation. You get the feeling that he's distracted, but he maintains eye contact decently and nods as you talk. "Two dupes nearing end of life..."

He jerks his head up, and looks you in the eye when you ask if there's any more than he needs. "Regrettably, yes. We will need your weapons. You are trained and until the autopsy comes back with relative life-age of these dupes and its effect on their brain function, you can continue to walk free but not armed."

You see some men coming in now, evidently called to clean up the mess. They look like they're in their mid-twenties and wearing the same jumpsuits you've seen people wearing who work janitorial jobs. They carry themselves like dupes, but peek up at the officers more often than dupes normally do while they mop up the bits of their friends that the crime scene investigators left behind after claiming the bodies and taking pictures.

   These guys have more trust issues than I do.   "Sure, I'll pick up the pistol when this is cleared up and I promise to not walk around armed until this is over.  No problem.  By the way, the Doc says that I passed my psych evaluation.  You should be getting the report soon."

   The clean up guys were making me a little creeped out.  I just had two dupes try to kill me.  Now some others were acting strangely.  I read a Joseph Heller novel, 'Catch-22', in my home timeline.  One phrase from that exceptional World War 2 tale always stuck with me.  Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.

He nods. "That is good to hear. I look forward to seeing his analysis. In the mean time, I'm afraid the single weapon won't suffice. We have to search your quarters as well and confiscate any firearms you possess until the investigation is complete."

You notice that Adam's behavior seems somehow colder than it has before, awkwardly cold. "I will search your quarters for weapons personally. You may observe while I search, if you would like, Misty. Thank you for being so cooperative."

   "Cooperative, Hell.  You act like I did something wrong.  You do realize that I was the one who was attacked and had to defend myself?   I'm still working on understanding your legal codes here.  Maybe you can explain it to me.  Would it have been better for you if I had let them bash me with the wrench or strangle me?  Out here, do you require someone attacked be bloodied or nearly dead for it to freaking count as self defense?"

   I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  It didn't help.  I was still very angry.  "I have a collection of personal weapons.  Most of them are antiques.  Some of them are prototypes.  All of them are tools I use in my travels.  When this investigation is over, what guarantee do I have that I get each and every one of my tools returned?"

One of the guards jumps at your reaction, and you get all of their attention by the end of your response to Adam.

He raises his voice assertively. "There've been two deaths! And you've shown that you're dangerous with weapons; thankfully that saved your life today, but we have protocols when dealing with self defense, even cases involving dupes!"

The dupes cleaning the hallway are now directing their attention outright toward you and Adam. He doesn't give you a choice, and steps forward, using his badge to open the door to your quarters. "Now, you can please step inside and offer me your antique weapons or you can wait out here and I'll have to search every inch of your quarters instead."

   As if I actually have a choice, I begin to walk toward the door to my room.  "I would normally allow the guest to go first, but since you are not really invited, I'll just go on in."  Yup, still angry.

   With his permission, I remove the mag and chambered round from the MP7 and place it on the table.  I removed the magazines and ammunition from the Sauer 202 briefcase and left the briefcase open on the table.  "There you are, one rifle and one personal defense weapon.  You already have the pistol."  I removed my denim jacket and shrugged out of the shoulder rig.  There didn't seem to be a lot of reason to keep wearing it.

"Whatever." He grimaces and follows you in, closing the door behind. Then, his demeanor completely changes.

Aggressively, he grills you before you get the chance to unload either of your weapons. "Look, you have to tell me exactly what happened. Where you were, what you did, who you've talked to since you've gotten on this ship, and I need you to tell me now." You see sweat start to bead up where his hair meets his head, even though the room is comfortably cool despite your efforts to raise the thermal settings.

   I took a moment to think.  "I went to see the Kid, just as I said I would.  By the way, he told me that his name is Gabe and his parents are Charlie and Lucy.  He was looking better, but not that much better.  He wanted me to try to find his parents.  I said that I would do what I could."

    "The nurse on duty said I should go talk to the cloning experts to ask my questions.  I went to see a Dr. Rose Farragut.  I asked her a few questions about clone reproductive systems.  I have no real idea of what she said other than they can't have kids.  Then she politely told me to go away."

   "I went back to see Gabe a bit later and he was gone.  His room was spotless and they had no record of his even being there.  I mentioned to the head nurse that you had asked me to find out what I could about him.  She said that I didn't have a badge to go snooping around.  I reminded her that you did.  She said since I was a civilian, she didn't have to tell me anything."

   "I also did some online research about cloning.  I found out that there are people who think what cloning should be illegal everywhere.  I also learned that there is a lot to learn about cloning."

   "I had to go back to the medical area to drop off my tank and get a clean bill of health.  It looked like the entire nursing staff had been replaced.  The new Unit Coordinator had been a medical records file clerk the previous day.  I wasn't able to learn what had happened to the previous people."

   "I then went and did the weapons qualification and psychological evaluations as a part of getting hired by you.  I was on my way back to my quarters when I heard the warning and ran into Frick and Frack.  And here we are."

   "There is something going on here and it's bad.  Somebody made Gabe disappear.  Those same somebodies swapped out the entire nursing staff.  Now two dupes were waiting outside of my room and tried to kill me.  Actually, somebody trying to kill me is a good thing.  It means that I'm asking the right questions of people who don't want the answers to get out."

He looks you in the eyes while you talk. You get the feeling that he's constantly assessing you while you tell him your story. "This doesn't make any sense."

He sits down in a chair in the room, putting a hand to his forehead. Sitting there now, you get a closer look at his face. You see the rings under his eyes, how pale he is compared to a few days ago, and you hear his stomach growl quietly and patiently. He doesn't look up at you, but says, "If an entire nursing staff went missing, some heavy hitters must be involved. It's too suspicious that the boy went missing at the same time to boot... And today, I found out that whoever is involved has their hands in the Security Officers' pockets."

   I relaxed a bit.  The Security Chief was a little too wired for it to have just been a couple of rogue clones.  For the briefest of moments, I was concerned that getting me to go in my room was just a ploy to get me alone to shoot me.  I was ready to boost and take him out if he tried to kill me.  I was glad I didn't have to hurt him.

   "What you said in the hallway was true.  There have been two deaths, if not more.  And yes, I am dangerous with weapons and that did save my life today.  You need someone you can trust.  You need my help.  You need my dangerous nature.  I need my weapons and I need a badge.  We need to work together on this."

   I thought about an old movie from my home timeline.  Sean Connery is a police marshal stationed at a remote mining colony on the Jupiter moon of Io.  He uncovers a drug-smuggling conspiracy, and gets no help from the populace when he later finds himself marked for murder.  It was kind of a deep space version of "High Noon".  "You wouldn't happen to have any twelve gauge pump shotguns around here..."

His eyes slowly raise to you, "A private investigator as capable of you, Miss Reynolds, could blow this whole thing open." He glances around nervously, even though it's just the two of you in the room.

"My month has suddenly become very complicated. Listen, I'll search for clues the badge route, but I need your help investigating the rest. It's for your own interests, too. I want you to continue your investigation, and there are plenty of people on board who'd never talk to you if you had one of these," he points to his badge, "Find out who was behind this attack on you. It could've been just two rogue dupes, but that sounds almost too convenient for the wrong people."

He sighs.

"I can't leave you with all of your weapons. You have to give me something-I suggest the rifle-and we'll pretend that you managed to stash the other somewhere private that I didn't find. You're right-you clearly need protection, but if you're seen with any weapon outside your room by one of our officers, you'll likely be arrested."

   I sighed.  I was being set out as a lightning rod again.  "I need you to track who owned the dupes that attacked me.  That will give me another place to start looking."

   I handed him the disassembled rifle in the briefcase and looked at the PDW.  It was a great weapon, but I'd need a trench coat for it to be concealable.  I didn't see any trench coats on the station, though.  "You already have my concealable firearm.  I could use something besides my sparkling wit and snappy comebacks to defend myself.  Would it be possible to leave one of your issue twenty caliber handguns, a few loaded mags, and a couple of boxes of ammunition in a safe spot for a scruffy investigator could find?"

"Dupes aren't private property here. They're technically owned by the company that runs the station, but not by individuals. Still, I could search to try and find their supervisor and poke around. Another avenue you could take would be to question some of their neighbors. Other dupes that live in their wing of the station. They aren't likely to cooperate well with an officer, but you might have better luck."

He shakes his head, "I know. I regret that the others were around, but there was no way to let you keep it publicly. I'll see what I can do about getting you a smaller weapon, and I'll contact you over the server with any information I find out." He glances at the door out nervously, then turns toward it with your rifle in his hands. "We're almost out of time. Listen, be careful; if things get too dicey, don't get yourself killed."

   "I'll need the number or location of their quarters, as well as their names to go and talk to the neighbors.  Do what you can about the pistol.  I'll be all right for a little while.  Don't worry about my getting killed.  I don't."  It happens sometimes, but I don't worry about it.

   I picked up my snapstick and was about to put it into my back pocket when I looked down and noticed the blood spattered on my clothing.  It was a nice change this time for it not to be mine.  "This is a variable length fighting staff.  It might give me enough of an edge to stay alive.  But I think a change of clothing is my next step.  These are somewhat the worse for wear."

"I'm sorry, I don't have any in your size." Adam replies, before stepping out with your rifle in tow. "I'll make sure to message you regarding what I know once they're identified."

   I waited until the guy left.  He might have been between the proverbial rock and hard place, but taking my weapons wasn't the way to get my help.  I changed into the clothing I had left out to dry.  Fortunately, they were dry.  It wouldn't have mattered if they were damp.  Wearing clothing with other people's vital fluids on them isn't my pick for the way to try to make a fashion statement.

   I made a mental note to pick up some additional toys at my next stop.  This was the second stop in a row where people have helped themselves to my stuff.  I dug into my pack and removed the charged particle pistol.  I checked the charge level.  It was fine, but I added a reload, just in case.  I tucked it into my waistband at the back of my jeans, then put on a long sleeved flannel shirt designed to not be tucked it to cover the weapon from observation.  I also tucked the snapstick into my belt where I could get to it quickly if needed.

   Once I was as dressed as I could get, I headed out to see what I could do to stir up even more trouble.  There was a certain cloning expert that I wanted to visit.

Dressed and armed, you leave your room and see that the mess has almost already been completely cleaned up by the dupes, who are still working hard at scrubbing the last bits of human remains from the creases in the floors and walls.

One officer seems to have been waiting for you, and approaches with a device in his hand. It looks like a phone but smaller, with a screen on the front. He swipes his finger across it, and it turns on and brightens. "Chief asked me to leave this with you, a portable in case he needed to get in touch for any further questions."

   I take the communicator.  I can use all of the help I can get.  "Thank you.  How do I answer it and how do I use it to call the Chief?"

   Once I have the basics of how to work the device, I head off to see the cloning doctor.

The officer shows you how to open up the communicator for live communication and written. It has a feature where you can send written messages directly, like email but the recipient will get an indicator on their device that they received one. The phone is fairly self-explanatory, though. It all seems to operate on a touch screen that changes based on the buttons you press to meet your needs for sending written messages or calling. The communicator only has one contact: AD.

You roll off with your new communicator and the equipment you chose to see Doctor Farragut again in her office. You're met with the same woman from before who greets you with a grunt. "May I help you, ma'am?"

   I brush by her with a "Thank you, but no thank you." as I continue on my way to see Doctor Farragut.

You move past her desk with grace, and see a dumbfound look out of the corner of your eye.

Soon, you find your way down the familiar halls of experimental labs with closed doors and small windows, through one of which you glimpse a couple of women in lab coats talking. All the way down a more decorated group of doors, you recognize the hallway that leads to Dr. Farragut's office, where you find a cold closed door waiting for you, with bold, white letters spelling out her name.

   I tried the Doc's door to see if it is locked.  If it is open, I'll go on in wearing my meeting a rich new client smile.  If it's locked, I'll just head on over to the Medical Section and try her again later.

The door is unlocked, it turns out; however no one greets you inside.

You see her desk, her glass board like before, and several shelves of books still lining the walls. The computer on her desk is turned off and closed.

Also, the lights overhead seem to have been left on.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:12, Tue 10 Feb 2015.

   I look around to see if there are any signs of a struggle like something has been tipped over or broken.  I next open the laptop to see if it comes back to life.  If there's a password or something, I'll close it and look for some type of briefcase to put the laptop in to take it with me in case there is anything for the security chief to find.  I'll also go through the desk looking for anything potentially incriminating.

You scrutinize the room for any signs of disorder, but you can't find anything other than the lights being on as out of the ordinary.

The laptop does come back to life when you open it; however, it opens to a screen prompting immediately for the user, D. Farragut's password. There's an option to log in as a guest, which is the only other profile.

While you're looking around her office, you do find a laptop case in her desk made of a synthetic fabric, colored green. The laptop fits in easily, and you feel the lump of its power cable inside another compartment as well.

When you bend down to go through the desk, you don't find anything suspicious in several of the drawers; however, you try to open one that seems taller, like a file cabinet, and it's locked. You feel a buzz in your pocket then, and hear a loud "Zwooop-DING" that contrasts sharply with the silence in the room. It's your new phone.

   After my feet hit the floor from having jumped a foot in the air, I snag the bagged laptop and walk out into the hall to answer the phone.  I don't have any way of opening the tall drawer that wouldn't be obvious.  The drawer will have to wait for a later visit.

You get out into the hallway, opening Farragut's office door and looking down at your phone. It's a message, not a phone call, it seems. After manipulating some buttons, you open the message.

It's a living quarters room-like yours. Evidently the dupes were bunk-mates. They both lived in room D15, and went by the names "Buck" and "Irving".

But you hear footsteps approaching from around the corner-back to the way you entered by the secretary.

   I start walking away from the sound of the footsteps.  I'm holding someone's laptop and even though it is evidence in an investigation, I don't happen to have a valid badge at the moment.  I'm not sure that the owner would see it the same way that I do, so I'll just try to avoid any difficulties like that by keeping on the move.  I'm looking for a good place to stash the case so that I can come back for it later.  Then it's on to room D15.

In the clean office hallway, you see that there are a total of ten offices down this hall with a dead end at the far end. There's a single stand-alone trash recepticle down there, but that's the only likely spot to stash the laptop aside from inside of one of the other offices.

Alternatively, you get a hunch and look up-the ceilings are metal plates but you can see thin divides between them. With enough pressure, you might be able to pop one up.

   I reached up to dislodge one of the ceiling panels to stash the laptop and case until later.  I've hidden lots of things in ceilings.  Other than that order of fried shrimp for a client who intentionally refused to pay me, I've retrieved them all.  I hoped this would work out equally well.

It's a bit of a jump, but being fit is more than a little helpful when going for vertical distance. It takes one jump to push up the panel, another to grab the top of the wall for support.

Hanging there, you can hear the footfalls echoing louder. They've almost turned the corner, and you sling the bag up into the ceiling, pulling the panel into place on your way down. This does leave you off balance, but you catch yourself, landing on your feet and one hand in a squat.

And then you see two women walk past the hallway you're in, not even glancing down it. They seem deep in a hushed conversation. From here, you can clearly make them out and you realize that both voices sounded familiar. It's Dr. Farragut and the same Lucy from the surface of Jupiter-with hair dyed red instead of her natural color you saw on the surface station's terminal.

   I really think I need to find out where the two of them are going.  I start trailing them.

You sneak back down the hallway to the corner and peek around before continuing. You have to catch up a bit, but you start to hear their voices-questions from the Lucy toward Dr. Farragut, and Dr. Farragut constantly and abruptly releasing some quieted "Hush"es in the process.

Eventually, they continue down the hallway and make a turn, opening you up to follow them deeper into the research wing of the station. At the next corner, Lucy stops and stands up tall, "I just want to know that he's okay!"

And Dr. Farragut turns her head, slightly in your direction as you elegantly remove yourself from her line of sight at the corner. "You know better than to ask me that. I've told you already-time and place, Luc, and neither are here and now. Now, don't you have a sample to look over? There's a surface station that needs another clone of a halfwit who thinks some graduate work in remedial biology makes her a scientist."

You hear her turn abruptly, and peek to see Dr. Farragut scan her arm along a wall, which prompts a double set of doors to open to an area that looks just like the rest, aside from the sign above the doors listing "RESTRICTED ACCESS" across the top in thick, red letters. She leaves the other woman, who looks just like Lucy, behind. This woman stares as the doors close and you see her knuckles are white from her fists clinching.

   I walked up to Lucy.  I didn't hurry, because I didn't want to spook her.  I kept my arms loose and at my sides.  I even smiled.  "Excuse me, Lucy.  My name is Misty.  I'd like to talk to you about a friend we have in common.  His name is Gabe.  Can we go somewhere and talk?"

She's looking down and starting to storm off. She almost misses you in the hallway, but jumps when you greet her. She looks up at you when you ask her about going somewhere to talk, but she raises her shoulders, holding herself, and drops her head to hide behind her bangs slightly.

"I'm afraid you have the wrong person." She mumbles, and tries to brush past you.

   I stepped in front of her to block her leaving.  "Gabe asked me to find you.  He was in the Med Section after I tucked him into a repaired enviro suit to keep him from dying from contaminated station air on the planet.  He was getting better until someone took him, erased the records, and got rid of the medical staff who knew about Gabe.  I'm going with Doctor Farragut as the prime suspect.  You need me and Gabe needs us."

She balks when you block her path, and looks up at you. Aside from a different hair color and styling, as well as the presence of make-up, she matches the features of the woman's picture you saw on the surface of Jupiter.

She sniffs once from surprise, but shakes her head firmly from side to side firmly. Once you speak again, though, she stops struggling to get past and matches your gaze. "Wait. Gabe isn't in the medical bay? Where? WHEN!?"

   I told her about my visit to Gabe, and how he disappeared when I went back to check on him.  I told her about the unhelpful staff who were replaced the next day by people who were at best unqualified for their positions.  I told her about my visit to the good Doctor and the two thugs who tried to kill me shortly afterwards.

   I looked her square in the eye.  "Now, you tell me your story."

She nods, and pulls you aside into a lab near the entrance, which is just a turn away from where you stashed Farragut's stuff.

She looks around the empty room, and quiets herself with a cold resolve. "Okay, fine. Gabe's my son, not the dupe's from the surface. I gave him to her to protect him; back then, there were strict resource and population protocols, and times were rough on the station. They would have taken him away for testing or sold him the next time traders came. I'd hoped to get him back one day, and it seemed like now was my chance. That's what she offered me, a chance to protect my son and to see him again. But if he's not in the medical bay-you're right, she must have done something with him!"

   I knew that we couldn't stay here, but I also knew that I didn't know where to go.  I thumbed buttons on my communicator to send a text message to my overwhelmed, covert boss.  "We need to meet soonest.  Where?"

   I turned back to Gabe's Mom.  "I've got a friend who can help you.  You need to tell him what you told me.  I've asked him to find a place to meet us.  I will get you there.  We will get Gabe back."

You get a text message back immediately.

Three hours, gardens. Details from dupes?

Lucy looks like she's about to break down again. "Thank God... He can help us? He can help us get Gabe back from her?"

   I texted back.  "Found Gabe's Mom.  See you there."

   I looked at Lucy.  "Yes, he can help us.  We will meet with him in a few hours.  Until then, we need to find a place to avoid the people who are going to be looking for us.  You know this place better than I do.  Any suggestions of where to go?"

She seems nervous. "Who would be looking for us until then?" She glances both ways subconsciously as she talks.

"I mean, Dr. Farragut doesn't know what we're doing or where we're going, right?"
This message was last edited by the player at 05:28, Fri 03 Apr 2015.

   I looked at her.  "I'm sure that The Doctor has already tried to have me killed once.  I doubt that she has given up just yet.  If we stay out of her way, she won't get you while trying to get to me."

She thinks hard, and then nods. "Yes, I know a secret spot. No cameras watching either. It's a quiet place at the wall of the station where they keep some of the food stores."

   There wasn't much of a decision required.  Stay here and get hunted down by cloned goons or hide out.  If it was just me, I'd go through the goons, but there was a Mother and her kid on the line.  "Let's go.  The sooner I can put a few walls between the Doc and us, the better."  I thought about taking the hidden laptop with us, but if there was any way of tracking the device, like a homing beacon or something, the 'puter would lead her right to us.

You follow her out of the science division through a side door that leads through the main lobby. Luckily, the receptionist isn't at her desk this time and you two walk by unimpeded. You head down a main hallway to the cafeteria, but stop partway and enter a side-door, marked "Food Service Management".

It leads to more clean halls, though nothing near as impeccable at the white science corridors. Eventually, you find yourself entering a room with a large, unattractive, gray, metal wall with a few holes covered with thick class protecting you from the black of space.

It looks like a cargo area, and your intuition tells you that you're close to the loading bay, but here you find shelves upon shelves and freezers upon freezers. The shelves seem to contain dry goods, and you two make your way to an office space near the back, with a whole wall that looks out on black space, stars, and the edge of the giant planet you're orbiting inching into view at the top of the window.

   The view from the window or wall, whatever, was... disconcerting.  I knew that I was on a space station, but to look out of an exterior facing wall to see the outside was a little creepy.  It was a thought provoking and inspiring view, but still creepy.

   "Nice little place you've got.  Do you come here often?"  I looked through the office area for some idea of what the office worker who used this place was responsible for controlling.  I was mostly looking for paperwork.  I didn't want to use any computer terminals so as not to give ourselves away.  We had the time.  The meeting wasn't for a while yet.

"Thank you," she takes one of the chairs in the room, and pulls a blanket from a closet the room has. It looks old, but thick and comfortable. You notice there's another inside, and that this room is particularly cold. She covers herself up, "I used to come here more, when I first came to the Gemini. Gabe's father showed it to me, and we came here together as often as we could."

The paperwork you find in the drawers isn't much. Inside, you find a pen-and-paper manifest of a single shipment that included some domestic animals. Then, under that you find a number fill-in puzzle book that has 2 out of 100 of its puzzles completed.

   I covered up with the second blanket.  We had some time to kill before the meeting and it was cold in the room.  I thought about the two of them meeting here covertly...  Gabe's Father and her...  as often as they could...  I tried not to think about what might be on my blanket.  It wasn't working.  "How much of all this does Gabe know?"

"nothing..." She whispers.

After a long pause, she continues, "Maybe I'll tell him when we're safe. I've thought about it. Dr. Farragut sent him down with my dupe before he was a week old with enough synthetic formula to last until he was old enough for solid food."

She faces you and shrugs, "I never knew that I'd see him again."

   My heart went out to her.  "I've never had a kid, so I can't even begin to know how much this hurt you to think you would never see Gabe again.  I do know that I will do everything in my power to get the two of you back together."

   Another question occurred to me.  Maybe we had another ally out there somewhere.  "Ummm... what ever happened to Gabe's Dad?"

She shakes her head at you but smirks nostalgically. "He was a good man, young, but ambitious. I told you that we met on the Gemini and we became close, but it would've been a scandal. He was running for a higher position and hadn't broken off his engagement when I got pregnant. That's why I sent Gabe to the surface to begin with. All three of our lives would have been ruined, but afterwards I couldn't stand seeing Adam anymore, so we broke it off..."

   I was listening to her talk when alarm bells began going off in my head.  "This Adam guy...  Do you know what ever happened to him?  What is his last name?  If he's still here, maybe I ran into him and know him."  If Gabe's Dad is Adam Dividius, my life just got a lot more complicated.

"I doubt that you've run into him. He makes himself scarce unless you've been here for a long time and have money to throw around." She laughs, "The high-and-mighty Chief of Security is just too busy for the likes of us."

   Yup, my life just got a lot more complicated.  I shouldn't be surprised, but I always am.  I'm not sure what that says about me.  When I have some spare time, in other words when someone isn't trying to kill me, maybe I'll try to figure it out.

   "We've got a few minutes.  Tell me about this Security Chief.  Did you two part on good terms?  Does he know about Gabe?  I know that I ask a lot of questions.  It's necessary in my line of work.  The more that I know, the more I can help."

"No, he doesn't. I told him that I lost the baby in the end, and we haven't spoken sense. He made some effort to keep in touch at first, but gave up after a month that I never made contact." She narrows her eyes. "Why are you so interested in Adam? It's history; I just want my son again, not him."

   "I wasn't asking about Adam as his role as Security Chief.  I was asking about Adam as Gabe's Father.  I need to know everything.  What I don't know could keep us from finding Gabe...  And I want to find Gabe."  I had a lot more questions and a little more time, so I tossed a couple more out there.  "Why don't you want Adam?  What happened between you two?"

"I told you, Gabe happened, but Adam doesn't know. After I abandoned my son on some station on Jupiter's surface, it soured the relationship. A lot." Lucy lets out a breath of exasperation. Irritated, she continues, "Look, he has nothing to do with this anymore and has no idea that Gabe even exists. He's not important, and we haven't spoken in years. We have both moved on, and been better for it."

   It was time to lay my cards on the table.  I just wish I had some cards I wanted to play.  I wasn't holding much of a winning hand.  <DarkBlue>"There is this slight problem.  I kind of work for Adam.  We're trying to get Gabe back.  He is the one I called to meet with.  If this is a problem for you, focus on Gabe.  He is why we're doing this."</DarkBlue>

She gives you a sidelong stare. "But he doesn't even know about Gabe. Why is he involved in all of this?"

Your mobile device starts beeping rapidly, and you notice that instead of a message from Adam, it says his name and Incoming Call in bold letters across the bottom.

   I held up my hand in what I hoped was still the universal sign of wait.  I answered the call.  "Yes?"

"Misty, where are you and what did you do to the dupes? They're highly aggressive now, many attacking people in the hallways of the station and more abandoning their work placements. We're having trouble managing the incident. Come in-we need every good shot we can get right now."

   This was soooo not good.  "I have Gabe's Mother and I stashed the bad Doctor's laptop for evidence.  She doesn't sound happy about it.  I'm on my way.  Where are you?  Where are my weapons?"

   I turned to my witness.  "You stay here for as long as you can.  I'll come back for you if I'm still alive to do it."

"Your weapons are at HQ, the officers should be expecting you but be careful on your way. The dupes aren't contained." Then, after a hesitation. "Wait, his mother? I thought the dupe on Jupiter died? Nevermind. Get here ASAP!"

You hear gunfire in the background, "Get here ASAP!" Then, you hear him disconnect the line.

Lucy looks at you skeptically, but nods.

   The kid gloves were finally off.  I've always wondered about that phrase.  I can't wear kid gloves.  I wear a size medium/large adult glove.  I pulled my little black particle accelerator pistol and began to move as quickly, but cautiously as I could toward the Security Office.

You move quickly down the hallways, and manage to keep yourself from getting lost for the moment.

You think that you know a shortcut back to HQ using some side passageways in the station, but they're less familiar to you than the direct routes.

However, when you're in the hallway, you hear shouts, banging, and other sounds of mayhem coming from down the direct path hall, which would take longer than the potential shortcut without distractions.

   I abandoned my plan to take the short cut and headed towards the source of the commotion.  I'm pretty good at mayhem, too.

You run toward the commotion, and you round a corner but bounce back quickly with cat-like reflexes to a crouched position. Around the corner is one of the sources of noise you here. At a T-intersection of hallways, you see several dupes (9 or 10 you think) dressed in jumpsuits holding wrenches, crowbars, lead pipes, and various other metal club-like weapons. Three hold pistols instead.

You saw that one of the dupes holding a pistol was watching a wall of people dressed in residential attire who were forced to sit kneeling facing one of the walls. Two of the crowbar dupes terrorize them occasionally by slamming their tools against the wall near the hostages. The other two dupes holding pistols are looking down each hallway of the T intersection not toward you. The rest were cutting up, talking in low voices, and interacting while keeping a lazy watch in every direction.

   I fired three shots from the blaster.  The first one was aimed at the upper torso of the dupe threatening the residents.  The next two were aimed at other two holding pistols.  My working philosophy is take out the shooters to avoid getting shot.

Can you describe the appearance and effect of your little black particle accelerator?

It's an energy pulse weapon about the size of a Beretta 92, black, with range and damage of a .44 magnum round.

You take three shots quickly. The first makes a sizeable hole in one dupe's head, the second and third are both hit in the neck and chest, respectively. All three drop.

The hostages seem stunned, but the remaining seven dupes in the gang charge you. Three will reach you in one moment, then the other four in maybe five seconds based on their positions.

   BOOST!  I can feel the chems flowing through me as they make me stronger and faster.  I'm outta here.  If I can both lead them away from the hostages and buy myself some time and space to fight these guys, that would be a good thing.  I take off back the way I came, doubling back to take the short cut to the Security office and the rest of my tools.

You boost, pivot, and dash. And you're gone. You hear those thug dupes running after you, but you duck to the side and keep running until you bypass the hallway you just liberated. There are still sounds of violence occasionally, but it's much quieter along your shortcut.

Soon, you're at the HQ. You round a corner, and feel a round breeze past your shoulder and stop into the metal hallway wall. The officer who oversaw your marksmanship examination smacks another officer and bellows, "Hold your fire."

They let you by, and the officer tells you, "Adam said you'd come." It seems to be just those two and a wounded officer sitting against a wall, his head rolling as he tries to maintain consciousness. The lead officer shows you to a metal box in which they were keeping your weapons. They're in the same condition as they were when Adam confiscated them. "Chief wanted you to contact him right when you got here."

   I unboosted once I saw the office.  I spent a few moments gearing up and checking my hardware.  The problem of getting my weapons back was that the reloads were still in my quarters.  "Guys, do you have any extra of those pistols that I used to qualify with?  My reloads are in my quarters.  If you can sign me out a pair and some ammunition, it would help a lot."

   I then called Adam.

The officer draws up the form fast, and hands you two Gemini-standard-pistols. He loads five magazines of 11 bullets while you call Adam.

He picks up immediately, "Safe at HQ?" Gunshots in the background. "I'm in the thick of it in Maintenance, but they have two more groups heading out toward the Science Division and the Medical Bay. I've already dispatched men to-" and the line cuts out.

   I snapped at the guy with the pistols, "What is the fastest way to the Medical section?"  As I wait for his answer, I check to see if the two pistols already have loaded mags in them, then tuck the extra mags in my pocket.

He gives you direction, and you're off quickly to the medical bay. In no time, you approach and you find ten security officers in tactical gear hunkering down behind medical barricades.

One of the men sees you, and nods. "Adam said he would send backup. Where are the rest?"

   "I'm all there is left."  I tried to put up a cheerful demeanor.  It wasn't difficult.  There are a lot of things I don't know about this place, but here was something I was pretty good at doing.  "Don't worry, I'm really hard to kill.  I've fought these guys twice already.  Body shots don't do anything to them.  Aim for the head.  They are abnormally fast, so aim and shoot quickly."

   I looked at each one of them.  They each only had one chance at this.  Technically, so did I, but I would get another chance at my next stop.  This was all that they had.  I had to do what I could.  I just hoped my best would be enough.  "You can do this...  We can do this...  Let's get this done."

They all seem a little more confident after your pep talk, and ready their weapons. "Right," one of them says, "They have the bulk of their force holed up in the first two units, through a forked path up ahead. Based on the layout, we are pretty sure that's where they'd set up to flank us. I'm thinking that we can still rush in, cover from both sides, and fight them back both ways."

Another officer speaks up, "No, we can't. I saw a few of them with guns earlier. We could be caught in a crossfire. Plus, they have hostages. The whole medical staff and their patients are back there."

   Hostages?  I hate hostage situations.  There's always some poor schmuck that gets sent to see if he can work his way into the hostage area to free the captives.  What's worse, the plan is always a stupid one.

   I looked at the guys.  "I have a plan.  Is there some way of getting the deck plans to display on this phone thingie?  I'm looking a second way back into where the hostages are kept.  Maybe there is a sealed door or an unused corridor the dupes wouldn't know about.  If there isn't one, I'll need to make my own door.  When I get their attention from behind, you come in and finish the task.  Shoot all the dupes.  They don't need weapons.  They are weapons."

One of the officers pulls you aside to see a wall map. He manipulates it to show you the area. On it, you see a thin wall near the back of the unit, into one of the suite-sized patient rooms.

Aside from that, the officer suggests, "Or we could pry panels from the floor or roof to try and access it that way, but the dupes would know about that." He sighs, "Sad thing is that they know the back paths better than we do almost everywhere."

   The plan has possibilities.  "Do you know if there are any hostages in that room?  Can you see if there are any Oxygen or other kinds of dangerous if severed lines along that wall?  Do you have access to any camera feeds before I go in?"  If the Doc was as good as I expected, cameras were probably out, but I had to ask anyway.

"No, our cameras are jammed station-wide. We have to rely on communication equipment or closed-system cameras now." He looks down at the schematics. "My mom got to stay in that room once, when it was open. There's nothing along that wall except a couch and a painting."

   That was something at least.  "Give a few minutes to get into position and get ready.  I'll call you once I'm ready to go.  Could you punch your number into my phone?  When I call, make some noise out here to draw their attention and to cover my entry."

   After getting the contact number, I made my way to the connecting wall to the hospital room.  I placed my hands against the wall and reached out with my mind to make contact with anyone in the room to read their surface thoughts.  I plan on spiking them if they turn out to be hostiles.

He grabs his communicator, and inputs his number. "Okay, I'll wait for your call."

You reach the other side of the far wall, and push your mind through the wall and find another nearby. It's small, will the voice of a frightened child. Please...someone please help...

I'm so scared.

I don't want to get hurt. If I keep quiet, they won't hurt anyone.

OOC: +@1 to Read Surface Thoughts for doing it without visual contact.

   A long time ago, I offered a guy named Oak a swap of a phaser for a light saber.  This is one of those times when I wish he would have taken me up on the offer.  I keyed the communicator.  "Make noise and get their attention, but do not attack.  I'm going through now."

   I picked what I hoped was a good corner of the wall, boosted, and kicked the wall as hard as I could, hoping to break through it.

"Affirmative."

You work to the edge of the wall, and fine a seem in it where you decide to kick. You focus on your form, boost, and SLAM your foot against the wall. Immediately, a dent a foot deep is punched into the wall, and it's disconnected so that you can see through to the other side through a small opening.

   I look through the hole to see who is in there and stage whisper, "Hey, get back away from the wall.  I'm here to rescue you and the others."  I don't have a lot of time because someone probably heard the noise, so I target the joint corner on the dented panel down from the corner I just kicked.  I focus my concentration and try to kick the wall panel in the room.

You see that the room you've broken into holds several hostages, many members of the nursing staff and one older man who's resting in a bed, sick. You whisper your instructions to them, and they seem frightened and relieved to see you.

You rear your foot back again, and make a hole big enough for people to move through one at a time. So far, there are still only the hostages in this room.

   So far, so good.  I climb into the hostage room, then try to get people starting to leave through the hole in the wall.  Once I get them going, I keep an eye on the door to see if anyone of the dupe persuasion comes in to check on the captives.  I need to keep this as quiet as possible, so the first dupe through the door get a patent pending, Misty Special Hardball Pain Blast to the brain.  I don't know how much longer I have, but I am happy for each moment that sees another person out of this room.

They all get up immediately. Many of the nursing staff starts walking through your new door single-file, but four stop before leaving. "What about the patients?" They talk quietly to one another, trying to decide whether to try and wake the patient up, lift them and carry him through, or just leave him for now.

One nurse steps up to you, "They have one of the doctors in the other room, and patients still all over in their own beds."

   It's hero time.  The problem is that I'm not good at being a hero.  I'm just a gumshoe trying to do my job the best that I can.  And I'm pretty sure that my P.I. Handbook doesn't mention weaponized bio-engineered clones.  Of course, I probably don't have the latest edition.  "My job is to get as many people out of here as possible.  If you're offering to help, I won't turn it down.  We need to get as many people back here and out of here as possible.  I'll clear the way.  You follow and take care of the people.  Questions?"

The nurse goes green when you ask her if she's offering to help. Still, she takes a deep breath in through her nose and shakes her head stubbornly. "No questions. Let's do it."

The others have managed to lift the unconscious patient off the bed, and are transporting him and medical equipment through the portal.

Outside, you hear a man--one you think you recognize, speaking louder. "He has to be here somewhere. Check the compartments in the rooms. Drawers, cabinets, he's a child so he could fit in any of them."

"Like I told you, we transferred him."

You hear a loud SMACK of skin on skin. "That isn't what the records say. Unless you're going to tell us where he is, keep quiet!"

   I smiled at the nurse.  "Thank you.  We're going to do a lot of good here together."  And I'm going to do a lot of damage by myself.

   They must be looking for Gabe.  Doctor Clonemeister must not have her mitts on him yet.  That was good.  I didn't have my mitts on him either.  That was bad.  I took a quick look around the corner to see what I could see.  I was ready to mind spike the guy talking.  Hitting a woman while I'm around is usually a really bad idea.

There are three or four men standing around the room in casual attire. Two have dark rings under their eyes. In addition, there's a lightly bloodied man in a white coat sitting down in a wheelchair his hands are bound behind his back. Another man is rubbing his fist in front of him. On his hip isn't one of the communicators you've seen but a good, old fashioned radio.

   I readied my MP7A1 PDW.  I figure that I'm going to need the little chattergun sooner than later.  Since I only have the one mag, I set it to single shot.  With my primary weapon set up, it was time to go to work.  I focused and then sent what I hoped was a major a pain spike at the guy with the radio, then ducked back out of sight.

The man with the radio was looking away from you at first, but as you prepare a pain spike to send at him, the radio buzzes to life with another familiar voice you can't quite place. "Harry, we're working our way through the labs now. No sign of the boy. What's your situation there?"

He turns toward your direction, and you suddenly recognize him-and the voice on the other end of the radio. The big man bloodying up the doctor is one of the dupes who came to the surface to rescue you and Gabe. On the other end, you recognize the other partner who came to help-John was his name. "No sign here either, but we haven't checked every nook and cranny. Security's got us bottled in here though, trying to get me to go out to negotiate with them. Probably so they can use me for target practice."

   I learned all that I need to know.  I fire the spike at Harry.  I need to clean this up quickly then head over to the labs.

You fire your pain spike at an unsuspecting Harry. And just as you do, you make eye contact with another dupe who raises his gun. "Get back in there with the rest, or else!"

Then, Harry shouts in pain and falls to a knee. He looks down at his shaking hands and somehow holds his consciousness and keeps himself together through what must be intense agony. You can tell that he's slowly trying to stand. Two dupes move over to tend to him. "What's wrong?"

"What happened?"

   The dupes are focused on their Boss.  This seems like a very good time to get to work on my Zombie Drill technique.  I fire a round at each of the heads of the two armed dupes, then one at Harry's head.  These bozos are too tough for a Mozambique Drill to do much good and I don't have the ammo to waste firing three shots at a single target.

You fire on the dupes, taking a few extra seconds for each to aim carefully and conserve ammunition. During one of your shots, you take fire and have to quickly duck back. It messes up your shot, but you still managed to hit your target in the chest, dropping him as he agonizes on the floor.

One dupe headshotted, one dupe in the chest that dropped, and Henry now returning fire.

   From cover, I reach out with my mind to find Henry, then spike him again.  When he is distracted, I'll shoot him, then go hunting for other dupes and hostages.

He tries to steady himself to return fire again, but the spike makes the shot fly wide, and you finish Harry.

As the pain was spiking through him, he made a last ditch effort to pull his radio out before he dropped from the bullet.

   I waited a few moments for another dupe to show his face.  If no one shows his face, I'm going to begin to sweep the closest rooms for dupes... and hostages.

Two dupes enter from the room after the gunshots, and you drop the first with a shot that hits him in the neck. His friend helps drag him behind a the wall quickly, and he shouts, "Give it up! We heard your gunshots, so we know one of you has a weapon, but there are more of us than there are of you. If you don't stop this, we'll come in there and you won't get to give up!"

   I tapped the send button.  I spoke quietly, hoping the guys could hear me and the dupes couldn't.  "Four dupes are down, including their leader.  I could use a little help with the rest.  I have their attention.  Come in quiet and shoot to kill."

   I called out.  "What makes you think the rest of you will do any better this time that the other times your Boss tried to kill me?  Give it up and I won't have to kill you, too."  Goons are goons, genetically engineered or not.  I'm definitely going to have to write an update to the P.I Handbook one of these days.

   I flipped the PDW to full auto.  I know I've got two or three good bursts before I had to go to something else.  I just had to make them count.

"What are you talking about?"

He shouts louder. "I don't even know who you are!"

   I know how this works.  He's getting louder to cover his people's movement.  I leaned out, ready to blast anyone looking even the slightest bit sideways at me.

Then, all of the sudden, you seem movement when you lean out. A gun slides out from behind the wall, kicked so hard that it slides along the floor, past the nurse's station, and into the room you entered through.

   I really don't have time to look at the pistol.  I do make a mental note to come back for it.  One can never have too many weapons.  OK, I can never have too many weapons.  I'm still looking to find and free any hostages.  I step forward into the corridor to begin to sweep the rooms for bad guys.

The dupe pokes his hands out from behind the wall before stepping in the open.

You hear gunfire down the hall that he came from, and you recognize some of the rounds coming from both "regular" weapons and the clipping sound that the light-weight weapons that security uses on the station here.

   I call out to the dupe.  "Get on the floor, face down with your arms and legs spread out, palms down and fingers spread apart.  Now!"  Armed or not, these guys are dangerous.  I'm still ready to shoot him if he twitches the wrong way.

The dupe complies immediately, and you see him a little clearer. He's wearing the same type of clothing civilians on the ship wear. He has a bald head and a pointed nose, but he puts his face down against the floor. You see a couple of the doors to patient rooms open near the nurse's station, where you have the captured dupe.

Frightened people in hospital gowns poke their heads through the open doors, and you hear the gunfire toward the entrance continue, though it has waned significantly.

   I call out.  "Come back this way.  There's a way out through the room behind me.  Stay along the walls away from the guy on the floor."  I'm still covering my prisoner.  I wonder what this place uses for handcuffs.

The man on the floor doesn't try to harass the hostages, who give him a wide birth as they pass him.

When they do, the nurse who came with you comes out from her hiding place and sees the man on the floor. She steps aside and collects the firearm that he dropped. "We have some leather restraints in the OmniSupply. She nods toward a door behind her.

   Leather hospital restraints...  I thought about them for a moment and decided that they would work.  "Would you please go get a set of your strongest restraints?  I'll keep an eye on this guy."

   I noticed that she had the pistol.  Strangers with guns behind me made me nervous before I started this jumping thing.  That nervousness hasn't gotten any better during my journeys.  "If you're not familiar with guns, maybe you might want to give it to me."

You two tie your prisoner up easily with the restraints. The woman looks reluctant about the pistol, but she caves and hands it to you after a few seconds.

The hostages keep coming out of rooms and moving out, until they see something around the corner and soon you understand why they've stopped. There's still some gunfire, but two men in security officers' attire have made it through, and are sweeping the area.

They relax slightly when they see you, nodding to you then turning to guard that entrance.

One approaches you. "After a few minutes, they attacked us and we hit them back. There are maybe five or six left, huddled in a corner hall with guns down both directions. Cap's trying to talk them down right now."

   "I took down three of them and this one surrendered.  A lot of people got out by going through an opening in that room."  I hooked a thumb toward the room in question.  "This bozo is yours.  I'm going to see if the Cap needs my help."  And if he didn't, there were other places I needed to be.

"It's up to you, ma'am, but I think you've done more than your share today. The dupes will surrender soon, and we've got them surrounded from all angles with cover."

The captain essentially tells you the same thing, and says he'll put in an extra good word when they discuss your admittance as a security officer on board.

Then, you hear a static buzz as you're walking by the main room toward an exit. John's voice on the other end says, "Harry, report....Report! Where are you?"

   I picked up Harry's discarded radio.  I couldn't help myself.  I tried out my best guy voice.  "Harry is busy. Whatcha need?"

He sounds suspicious over the walkie, but sighs. "I'm going to kill him if we make it through this... Fine, what's your situation in medical?"

   This was working.  I really hadn't expected it to.  "No change.  We're still looking.  The medical people are in the back.  Security is trying to talk us out of here.  I'm supposed to ask how you are doing."  I can use any intel I can get.

"Tell Harry to make demands. Keep them talking and not shooting for as long as possible. If you don't find the boy there after another hour...tell Harry to give up. Listen, he won't take it well, but I have to go silent from here on out; I think they're monitoring our frequency."

   I had an idea.  I took the radio over to the Captain.  "This is what they are using to communicate with each other.  I have an idea that might get these guys to surrender to you.  May I try it?"

The Captain looks at the radio. "Old-fashioned. Do what you need to end this conflict, but when you're done let me know what frequency they're talking on."

   I smiled.  "After I try this, you can have the radio, Captain."

   I headed to where the security guys were holding down the fort.  I called out to the dupes.  "I just spoke with John.  He told me that with Harry gone, you should give up.  Harry wouldn't have taken giving up very well, But with him gone, John said you all should surrender to the security officers."

Gunfire ceases when you give your message to the dupes. You hear them talking very quietly down the hall, but you can't make out a word that they say.

Then, they send a spray of bullets down at you. One of them must have a sub machinegun. "Liar! How can we know that you're telling us the truth?"

   Things weren't going according to the plan.  That was to be expected.  Nothing ever seems to go according to any plan I make.  I'm going to go with the randomness of life as the problem.  That's better than considering that my plans always suck.

   "Think about it.  How would I know the name of the guy on the other end of the radio if I was lying about talking with him?  How would I know the Harry's name if John didn't tell me.  How would I know how Harry would take giving up if John didn't tell me.  You are supposed to give up now because you can't keep searching anymore."

You hear one of the dupes curse, a little too loudly. It puts the security officers around you at ease. The dupe speaks up, "Fine, we'll come out..." He sticks his head around the corner, "But I want to talk to John. Slide the radio to us, and you've got a deal, lady, as long as he says so."

   Hmmmm...  This could be a problem...  "I can't give you the radio.  It's evidence.  Truthfully, I can't see why we're still having this conversation.  Harry, your immediate leader is dead.  John, Harry's boss, told me to tell you to give up to save your lives.  If you really want to be dead, there are a group of security men here to make that happen.  You have two choices.  Surrender right now and live or get chopped to bits by accurate, massed fire by highly trained security personnel.  It's your call."

There's more waiting after you try to get them to surrender again. The security officers look like they're getting tired and impatient from the stand off, but then finally automatic, semiautomatic, and melee weapons are thrown out and collected by the officers. The dupes keep their hands visible and come out one at a time, per instructions by the Captain to be arrested.

The captain of this group offers to shake your hand. "Thank you for your help; this would have been a lot bloodier without you here."

   This has got to be a first.  I got involved in a situation and it turned out less bloody.  I'd circle the day on my calender, if I had one that could keep up.  I shook the Captain's hand and gave him the radio.  "I'm glad to have been able to help.  I've got to be going now."

   I hit my communicator thingie to call Adam.  When he answered, I gave him an update.  "Medical is secure.  Three perps down, the rest of them surrendered.  Where do you need me next?"

Adam doesn't answer the line, and you don't hear a ring.

You look down at your communicator and try his contact again, but again there's nothing on the other end.

   I know where my quarters are from the medical bay.  I really need to stop by my room to gear up as quickly as I can.  I've had some practice, sometimes too much practice, at gearing up quickly.

You make it back to your quarters untouched. Where your quarters are, you see faces peeking out of their reinforced glass inside the doors, watching you from their rooms. Not every room has a face looking out at you.

   I take the couple of minutes that I need to strap on my weapon harness and put everything in place.  The snapstick and stunwand were in their thigh holsters.  My MP7 was riding in its belt rig.  My Glock was back riding under my left arm.  I tucked the blaster in its usual spot behind my right hip.  I added the extra three forty round mags for my chattergun to the belt, figuring that this was going to get really messy before this was over.

   I left the two little station pistols and their extra magazines in my pack.  They were nice, but I knew my own tools far better than I knew their tools.  As I was putting the station's scrooch guns away, I stole a moment to look at the pistol from the surrendering dupe.

You take a second and examine the dupe's pistol. It's a big brick for a pistol, heavy in your hands. You find the mechanism to release the magazine and find ammunition that is at least .45. It feels like it's all metal, and the pistol is thicker at its rounded barrel that contrasts sharply with the rectangles that favor the rest of the design.

From your examination, you conclude that it's a heavy weapon, probably packs one heck of a punch, and holds 15+1 rounds of ammunition.

   I tucked the heavy pistol into my pack.  I don't feel safe in taking an untested handgun with a limited ammunition supply into an unknown situation.  It's a character flaw which I'm not trying to work on at the moment.

   I extended the stock of the PDW, lowered the front hand grip, threaded the suppressor onto the barrel, and swapped out for a fresh forty round mag.  Then, finally dressed for the party, I headed out to the maintenance section.

You grab your equipment with disregard to Adam's earlier warning about carrying around weapons. In times of war...

Armed to the teeth, you march out and head for the Maintenance area, where you see on the primary way to maintenance, barriers have been established and about twenty security officers are guarding various ones or on communicators taking/giving orders for reinforcements.

You don't immediately see Adam, until you notice that he's bending over a shiny, steel...you're not quite sure what it is, but he's using it as a table and looking over a holographic map.

   I walk over to Adam, ignoring the stares I know that I have to be getting from the security guys.  I don't care if I'm not supposed to be carrying weapons.  I don't care that I'm carrying a quantity of firepower they've probably never seen before.  I don't even care that suppressors are probably as illegal now as they were when I left my home timeline.

   Once there, I clear my throat softly to get his attention.  "The Medical Bay hostages are free and most of the shooters surrendered to your security guys.  Where do you need me next?"

As you approach, you realize that you were mistaken a moment before. The man has Adam's rough build, sensible hair, and square jaw, but his eye cheekbones, acute nose, and intense eyes reveal that he's another man. Additionally, his insignia for rank is different, and matches that of the captain's you saw at Medical but with an additional silver stripe under it. He looks up at you, "Are you the merc?"

   The P.I Handbook has a chapter on maintaining working relationships with law enforcement types.  I remember seeing it in the index.  Next time, maybe I should read that chapter.  I'm not sure if I should do the snappy banter thing with Captain Silver here...  No...  Actually, I am sure.

   "The Merc?  I prefer to think of myself as a Minister without portfolio.  Two questions...  Where's Adam?  What do you need done?  Feel free to answer them in any order you want."

    On second thought, maybe I should have gone with merc.  Mercs get paid.

Keeping a serious face for a moment, he cracks a smile, "Minister without por...That's funny." He returns his eyes down to concentrate on the floor plan he's examining. "Honestly, I thought he'd be coming back with you. Before he left, he made it pretty clear he was meeting with you in the Research Division-the Science Wing. It was the oddest place that hostile dupes had been spotted, so he wanted to investigate it personally."

   Hmmm...  The fog of war?  "I can understand going to Research about the rogues.  I think Research is creating them.  Before we were cut off, Adam told me that he was jammed up in Maintenance.  Did he clear up the problem in Maintenance and go to Research?"

   I'm not really a big picture kind of girl.  I usually got hired by little people with problems caused by big people.  I never always knew why thugs were being thugs.  I just had to stop them from being thugs to my clients.  Times and places may change, but I'm still me.  It's all I know how to do.

   It's like what I'm doing here.  I'm not here to bust an illegal cloning operation.  I'm not here to stop some Corporate power play.  I'm just trying to put a family back together again.  Protecting the Mom...  Finding the Kid...  Rescuing the Dad...  These are the kinds of things I'm very good at doing.

OOC: ;) I know.

IC:

"Yeah, he was tied up here with us. This is definitely where the most dupes were stirring up trouble-not to mention the ramifications if they managed to enter some of the secure areas-like Power or Air Filtration. But he got clipped while he was on his com with you."

He recalls the events for you, "Chief Dividius got clipped in a skirmish; it destroyed his comm. After that, he finished out the fight and booked it to Research, letting me take over the operation here at Maintenance. It's always been only a matter of time. I don't know what they think they'd accomplish. And Research has more to lose than anyone, pulling a stunt like this. Imagine the headline, duplicates running wild and uncontrolled in space?"

He returns to his hologram, and picks up a comm, "Sanders, secure the exit ducts to make sure no more dupes sneak out that way. Jenkins, are there any signs they've broken through to fundamental operations yet? Good."

   I knew where I was going.  "What can you tell me about the Research situation?  I'm heading over to there to see if I can help."  What I would find is always something else.

"It's strange, actually." He pulls himself away from his comm for a moment. "That's a great question to ask Dividius. He lost his comm when he was shot and didn't grab another before running off on his own. When you reach him, get into contact with HQ and let them know what's going on."

   "Do you have a spare comm unit I can pass along to him?"  Once I have my answer and hopefully the comm, I head out toward the Research area.  I have as much information to work with as I usually have, as in almost nothing, and a full complement of weaponry, as in almost everything.  It's time to go back to work.

   I didn't get many strange looks from people as I moved through the station.  The reason was probably because there weren't many people about.  Everyone seemed to have gotten the word to keep their heads down.  If I were smarter, I'd probably be one of them.  If I were smarter, I'd probably be working for an insurance company trying to catch fraudulent claimers.  I'd have a classic sports car, a condo in the city with a mortgage, a steady boyfriend, and a really nice pair of sunglasses.  And...  I'd be bored out of my mind.

   Maybe I can find some sunglasses.  I kept walking, my PDW at the ready.

It's a ghost town all the way to the research station. Even the sassy woman at the counter is gone, and no one complains when you push the door open and step through. You don't see any signs of struggle in the crisp, white hallways that lead through the more public laboratory spaces and the offices, one of which you're already familiar with.

   I check each office as I walk by.  I don't want to leave anyone behind me.  That would be unwise.  I know that it will slow me down, but I don't want to leave here until I've seen this through.

There are a lot of offices, which makes your search excessively slow. After the third hallway and thirty-sixth office door you've opened, you get a feeling up your spine and feel excessively impatient about your progress, though you have been moving through them as quickly as you possibly can.

   As I moved through research, I got the feeling that I really needed to hurry.  That feeling was counterbalanced by my need to do as thorough a sweep as I could.  Even though I could have skipped some of the offices and probably not have missed anything, I was doing a job and that job needed to be done as well as I could do it.  Still, I tried to pick up the pace.

You're successful in speeding up the process as you still go door to door to make sure no one can sneak up on you. You use your sense of hearing actively too, to assess for dangers behind doors or in blind spots as you move, and then you find yourself in the hallway that you found Lucy on when she was talking to Dr. Farragut.

The only difference is that the high-security door that Farragut had gone through is open now. The hallway beyond, where you haven't been yet, is silent and there's a sense of something forbidden about it.

   I found myself muttering, "This setup stinks worse than dollar store perfume."  I admit that I am nervous.  Still, I have been a professional troubleshooter for a long time.  I tried to tell myself that this was just another case.  It wasn't working though.  These people were screwing around with genetics and making monsters.  I took a better grip of my PDW and continued on.

You enter the hallway, and from the entrance you see a white hall with a green stripe across the middle of the walls going on beyond. This hallway proceeds to a T intersection, which has a yellow stripe along its walls.

The paint is on the same level as the doors, and on this hallway, you see eight doors. Judging from the distance, each one is probably as large as a medium-sized hotel rooms. The paint on the doors is all green with white where the green stripe would be, and Green letters saying G-1 and G-2 on your left and right respectively. There are four doors on each side, odds on the left and evens on the right.

You hear nothing but feel a very, very slight breeze coming from in front of you down the hallway.

   "Offices...  Examination rooms...  Detainment cells..."  Those rooms could be anything.  There was no real way to tell without going to take a look.  Investigator is what the I in PI stands for, after all.  I decided to start with G-1 to see what it held.