“That’s outside the realm of reasonable responses wouldn’t you say? Far beyond what the Japanese government would condone.” Cha’Risa said. “These people need to be put down.”


    “If I may, we should incapacitate them for capture by the local authorities. Our cause will not be furthered by bloodshed of those who look like allies,” Gee suggested.


    “How do you suggest we ‘incapacitate’ four trained Earth Forcesmandos?” Cha’Risa growled.


    “The police will be here in one minute. Give us thirty seconds to nk themandos. Then draw their attention. We will do the rest.” Gee said looking up into her face calmly.


    With a nod Gee and Bal raced down the alley at top speed. They looked like shadows leaping from ce to ce.


    The Major shared a look with Nann then they made their way to the south end of the alley. Nann used the fiber cam on herm to peek around the corner. Sure enough there were the four agents preparing to storm the hotel to confirm their targets had been killed.


    “It’s time. This should draw their attention,” Major Ash stepped clear of the corner and sent a concussive round into the park’s brickwork wall just to the left of themandos. The exploding brick and mortar peppered the four painfully but did no serious damage.


    They ducked behind the cover of a vendor booth and momentster Gee stepped out from behind the same booth and waved.


    The Major and Nann ran towards the park entrance and saw the fourmandos trussed up and unconscious on the sidewalk. A dart stuck out of each of their necks though one had a second dart sticking out of his nose.


    “Let’s go!” Gee barked and Bal followed her running partner into the park.


    Nann gave the Major a surprised look then they ran after the Altarians.


    A short distance into the park they saw a small food wagon on its side and one of the Tik wedged inside, covered in noodles, trying to gently get free. The old vendor was standing beside the wagon wailing and shouting at the Tik. At the far side of the park the second Tik was cradling a bunch of stray kittens in its tentacles.


    “WHAT THE FUCK? GATE! NOW PLEASE!” the Major bellowed. The Tik jammed in the noodle wagon took a grip with its powerful tentacles and ripped the structure in two to get free causing the old man to shriek in dismay. Bal moved forward and bowed deeply to the man as she held out a metallic card. He stopped his tirade to watch Bal and when he saw what she was offering to him his wizened features lit up in surprise. Apparently Altarian IOU cards were a knownmodity as the man returned Bal’s bow, took the card and immediately fled with it clutched in his hand.


    The second Tik arrived with Leo. It still had one of the kittens with it. “Where do you wish to go now?” it asked.


    “Altaria! Ministry of Security! Now!” the Major barked as she heard the police arriving.


    The Tik positioned themselves side by side and a deep hum began. The Gate snapped into existence between them and the group saw themselves looking back.


    Leo and Maxim got a nod from Nann and they rushed through, quickly followed by the redhead. Gee and Bal pushed the Major through just as the police rushed into the park. The Tik shot through next and copsed the Gate behind them.


    The group stood on the greenwn before the Ministry building, enjoying the warm sunshine as security personnel ran towards them. Leo and Maxim surrendered their weapons as did Nann. Gee handed the Major’s weapon to a waiting officer and the security staff rxed recognizing the two agents. The group immediately headed for the building and quickly made their way directly to the Security Minister’s office.


    Hellna wasing around her desk as they entered. “Were you sessful?”


    The Major nodded, holding up herm. They made their way over to a console where she’d be able to disy the contents of the files she’d collected. She connected herm and pulled up the files on therge disy. Ray had created a record of his research process, verbally spoken and transcribed automatically as he worked. In addition to this were a series of documents showing his findings. The transcript helped describe these other documents, exining what they meant and how he found them. Ray’s signature was on this file. This was the report the Major had been expecting to find. She clicked on the transcript file and Ray’s voice came out of the speakers under the disy.


    “This is Lieutenant Ray Sharif, documenting my findings for Major Cha’Risa Ash of Earth Security Council Force. It’s, insert date here, and I am at the Los Angeles Gate following a money trail, catching the bad guys and serving up some cool justice. As Nann knows, nobody does it better than me.”


    Nann rolled her eyes and grinned at the Major but she had tears in her eyes too.


    “Determining the members of the Los Angeles smuggling ring was child’s y. This document,” A file in the folder highlighted momentarily, “lists all of the ounts in use to collect and distribute the funds they earned for passing contraband through the Cargo Gates. And here are the names of these losers clearly linked to the ounts.” A second file highlighted.


    “Surprise, surprise I found a link to two other cargo distribution Gates, New York and Moscow, and I’ve added a few names from those as well but chasing this down is not my current priority so I am putting a bookmark in that.”


    “Now, there is no name linked to the payment for the shipment the Team followed through to Rehm. There is a bank ount number however. I like these as they are my bullseye in the banking databases.” The sound of rapid typing ensued before his voice returned. “This one, ah! It’s a government ount. Officially opened ten years earlier for managing the funds of a small project for a branch of Earth’s Trade Commission. Let’s just see if the Trade Commission has any recent references to the ount.” More rapid typing sounds. “Ok, the most recent activity in the bank ount wasn’t referenced in any Trade Commission documentation. So these transactions weren’t part of any official Trade Commission business. In fact, thest official Trade Commission document reference to the ount ID was its inclusion in a listing of stale ounts needing to be closed. The request memo came from… the Trade Commission’s oversight department and was sent to Director Goodson. That- that name sounds familiar. His responding email indicated the ounts had been closed and included the bank’s transaction ID to prove it. I’m going to look at the bank’s transaction to see what our Director Goodson was up to…” Rays voice went quiet as the sound of frantic typing filled the speakers.


    “Ok, I’m back in the bank records but the list of closures they received from Goodson didn’t include the ount in question. Huh. There is a transaction showing the ount had amunication redirect on it… the new address is… ah, an anonymous mailing repository. This could be a dead end. Time to pop their hood.” More typing. “Well, thank goodness for dumb criminals. The anonymous ount was purchased with funds from Director Goodson’s personal ount. Bravo!”C0pyright ? 2024 N?v)(elDrama.Org.


    The Major shared a look with Nann, Maxim, and Leo. The smugglers were paid from an ount only Goodson had ess to.


    Ray’s voice continued as files lit up in the folder for each of the pieces of proof he’d found. “I am gging Lawrence Goodson, ex-Director of Earth’s Trade Commission, as a prime suspect. I am now crawling all of his ounts.” There was a time jump in the recording as his tools needed time to do this work. “My search yielded some good results. The official ounts have been closed and show no activity since the time he went on the run. Yes, it’s that Mr. Goodson. The one who tried to kidnap Mr. Danner before. I did find the threads of a personal ount which has been used to ess the hidden bank ount. So now I’m spelunking the history of this personal ount to find any correspondence that leads me to the kidnapping request. Since the shipment went to Rehm I am checking if any messages came from there… and… nope. How did Goodson get the request for the abduction? Maybe it is in the deleted correspondence. It would have to be recent so these messages should still exist on the servers. Looking… looking… hello, what’s this? He was corresponding with a dark bulletin board. He has a recent message from the board. The board in question seems to be for underground anarchists. Clever. Time to dig a little deeper. Maybe these dudes know… Fuck me.”


    A screen capture file loaded and they were looking at the front page of the bulletin board. Just ncing at the subject lines on the messages made the hairs on the back of Cha’Risa’s neck stand on end.


    “This is a honeypot! It looks like a nasty little gathering ce for anarchists to share their ns for shit disturbing but it’s actually run by the Earth Security Council! What the hell was Goodson, a man on the run from this very agency, doing essing this board? I’m logging into the Earth Security Council databases to review the board policies.” There was another time jump and several files were highlighted in the folder indicating these contained the material he was speaking about.


    “Ok, there are two levels of ounts on this board. Public ounts which can’t see the internal, official gs or annotation fields on the messages and Admin ounts that see and maintain these internal fields. There is a field which indicates the message was nted. Fake leads which can be safely ignored by internal review processes until there are public responses. Here is the… bad thing. The message in Goodson’s email contains the gs and annotation fields. This means he’s logging in with an Admin ount. How did he get a privileged ess ount? He was a criminal on the run at the time. I- I could follow this but I think it’s taking me away from the goal of finding the source of the abduction message. Putting a bookmark in the privileged ount question.”