

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Zero

Episode One

First Edition copyright © 2009 Odette C. Bell

Second Edition copyright © 2015 Odette C. Bell

This book was previously published under Jilly McQueen - a pen name of Odette C. Bell. It is now being republished under Odette C. Bell. It was previously published as a single title. It has now been split up into Zero Episode One and Zero Episode Two.

Cover art stock photo: licensed from Depositphotos.

For free fiction and details of current and upcoming titles, please visit

www.odettecbell.com

Zero

EPISODE ONE

With a comic edge, Zero is a sci-fi space opera that charts the adventures of a bounty hunter called Oatmeal as he flies around the galaxy with his trusty sidekick, a genius kid called Jelly.

...

Life's good for Oatmeal at the moment; when he isn't lounging on the coach watching reruns in his boxers, he's out smashing CRIMs and cashing bounty checks.

But then she comes along. And she is a galaxy-full of freaking trouble. It was just meant to be an ordinary rescue: save the Earth-girl from the nasty aliens, give her to the police, and cash that fat check. But Callie Hope is anything but ordinary.

Just one day with her, and Oatmeal finds himself being tracked down by every CRIM, galactic cop, and terrorist the Milky Way can throw at him. Now his options are painfully simple: take all the kid's cash and dump her or ... save the galaxy.

Zero is a two-part series. Both installments are currently available.

# Prologue

The child stood on the torn, fissured ground. Heat rose from it like steam from boiling water, and it tracked across his skin, burning and blistering as it went.

"Get to the transport craft!" a faceless soldier shouted. His body was shaking under his jumpsuit, as if his skin had turned to ice. "Get that kid to the craft now!"

Another fissure opened off to the side of the child. It was like staring down into hell, with little red demons of molten rock jumping high into the sky all around him.

Two men grabbed him, one on either side, and hurled him forward. He looked up and could see their white helmets stark against the red sky.

"Is that all?" the soldier in charge shouted as they threw the kid into the cargo cabin of the transport. "Is that all?!" his voice peaked like a soprano trying to crack glass.

"No, sir."

The child picked himself up and turned around to stare at the soldiers by the door. They were just white shapes against the soot-filled air and red boiling clouds.

The soldier in charge, the one the other exhausted soldiers looked up at even though their shoulders were caving in from exhaustion, shook his head. "Too late then. Close the doors and take off."

The doors slammed closed just as a chunk of burning rock sailed through. One of the soldiers stamped on it with a jerky leg, hanging onto the railings as the transport craft tipped and shot forward.

Some lady he didn't know put a hand on the kid's shoulder and pulled him back. She rested her chin just by his face, her tears seeping through his shirt. "Everything is lost... it's all lost."

He pulled himself free. "Don't say that! Zero's gonna come! Zero's gonna save our planet!"

One of the soldiers laughed. "Oh, she's coming alright, kid, but it won't be to save that planet. That dump of a planet is dead—"

"Stow it," the soldier in charge kicked sharply at the metal floor by the other soldier's legs, "kid doesn't need to know a thing."

"Zero's going to save us all!" the kid screwed up his fists. He could feel his knuckles pop and crackle. "Zero's going to save us!"

They all sobbed behind him, all the other survivors, pallid faces caked under soot and tears.

He wasn't going to cry.

Zero was coming.

"Sit down, kid." The soldier in charge wiped one of his gloves over his helmet, smearing the dust in great dirty lines. "We'll be docking in a second. And if you're lucky, you'll see her, kid, you'll see Zero. Just sit down."

"Docking in five," a voice crackled over the intercom. It was so harsh and filled with static that it sounded like the guy was still off-world, shouting through the tons of ash and soot that were engulfing the planet. "Four, three, two, dock."

The floor lurched forward, and metal screeched on metal like a crying cat.

The transport doors opened.

More white-suited soldiers swarmed through the door, grabbing at the refugees and hauling them onto stretchers.

This time they didn't have helmets; this time he could see their faces. They all looked sickly and pasty white, like walking corpses.

One of them bent down to him, offering a gloved hand. "You okay, kid?"

The kid slapped at the hand. "Where's Zero? Why isn't she here?"

"Whoa, buddy. Calm down, you'll see her soon enough." The soldier rose to his feet, his gaze flicking over the other survivors with jerky movements.

He wanted to see her now.

The kid pushed past the guy, sinking his small soot-blackened hands into the thick fabric of the soldier's suit and pushing hard. The soldier teetered, and the kid shot past into the hallway, dodging around two other men who tried to grab him.

"Get back here, kid!"

He ran through the corridors. They were all white and clean, all metal and new paint.

There was an alarm, it kept whirring and whirring, and this little red light above every doorway flashed an angry red.

"Hey, kid! You shouldn't be here!"

"Stop that kid from reaching the bridge!"

He dodged past this old guy with a donut-shaped belly and ran on. He'd never felt his heart beating like this – it was as if it would slam out of his chest and bounce around the walls like a rubber ball.

He didn't care. He had to get to Zero. Zero was going to save his planet.

Then the corridor widened out through these thick doors. He knew it was the bridge right away. There was this massive screen stretched across nearly all the wall, and everyone was staring at it.

There was a red ball in the center of the screen. It looked like the pictures he'd seen of his planet in class... except it was a different color. Red, not blue. Everybody knew that Onus was a blue planet – so why did they have a red one on screen?

"The singularity is growing, sir. Five minutes before the planet's core is compromised."

"Can the machine be decoupled? Is there any chance we can reverse the effects?"

"It's doomed. It was doomed well before we got here."

Then a soldier in his clean uniform turned from the screen. "Hey, what the hell is a kid doing on the bridge? Get him out of here."

Strong arms wrapped around his middle, and someone picked him up.

"Let me go!!" The kid screamed at the arms, kicking and scrambling, desperate to get loose.

The guy sitting in the biggest chair in the center of the room turned and looked straight past him. "Call her."

He stopped struggling.

The bridge smelled of sweat; he could make it out now as he hacked up the black ash that clogged his nose and throat.

The guy that was holding him stopped, about to push him through the bridge doors, but stepped back as if he'd been burnt. He didn't let go, but he backtracked quickly, as if he was scared the doors would turn red and scream at him.

They swooshed open, and Zero walked through.

He'd seen her before; he had her poster, and Steve even had a figurine. But it was like all the other soldiers in the room had never seen her at all – they were all staring with these wide, unblinking eyes.

She was pretty, right? Wasn't that why guys stared? Or was it the cool black-and-white armor that hugged her like a jumpsuit? That wasn't what he liked best, though. He liked the rod she held. It was awesome, with a blue glowing bubble at the end. If he had a rod like that, he'd get the other kids that bullied him. They wouldn't stand a chance against that rod. Or better still: he'd just take Zero along; she'd sort them out.

It was all okay now; Zero was here. Zero would fix everything.

The kid relaxed further.

"Singularity growing, sir," some guy said, "we're running out of time!"

"Zero." The guy in the big chair stood with his feet planted firmly apart, like a gym teacher doing star jumps. "The planet is lost."

"I will destroy it," she said.

Destroy it?

The guy that held the kid slackened his arms for a moment.

Destroy it?

"No!" The kid forced his body forward, a heat he'd never felt before spiking through his bones. "You can't destroy it – you're Zero!"

They all looked at him, then she looked at him.

Zero smiled and disappeared in a twist of blue transporter light.

Seconds later, the planet Onus was crushed like an egg....

...

Oatmeal woke with a start. He put a hand up to his chest and rubbed through the fabric of his shirt with a gruff movement.

Goddamn dreams. Always the same goddamn dreams.

He pushed himself up and took one hell of a breath, holding the air in until he could feel it push at his lungs, expanding his chest like a hot balloon.

Just one night, just once, he'd like to dream of something else.

Oatmeal pushed himself up and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, still sucking in the air and trying to coax his heart into a steady rhythm.

Was it too much to ask to dream of pretty girls or bunny rabbits or goddamn ice cream? Why did it always have to be the same sickening sequence over and over again? Prack, prack, prack – he'd been dreaming of the destruction of his planet for his whole life, and it still had the power to rattle his bones.

Oatmeal rubbed his eyes, pressing too hard and seeing streaks of light before he realized what he was doing.

"Prack!" He bunched up a fist and struck the wall by his bed. He was satisfied at the chunks of plaster and paint that crumbled around his knuckles.

"You're up then?" Jelly called from the other room. "Hitting walls as usual."

"Shut up, Jelly!" Oatmeal screamed furiously. "I thought I told you never to talk to me in the morning."

"Oh, I haven't forgotten, sir, but you also told me to tell you the moment a target came up. And boy, have we got one."

Oatmeal frowned at the wall, picturing Jelly's ball-like face beyond it. The kid better not be playing, he thought to himself. "Serious?"

"Oh yeah," Jelly called back. "I fixed your motorbike too."

Oatmeal nodded approvingly at the wall and flicked off the plaster that was still clinging to his fist. "All right." He rolled to the side and jumped out of bed, his bare feet slapping against the cold floor. "Well, fix me some breakfast, Jelly; I'm going hunting."

"Already? Aren't you going to watch your morning TV? MacGyver's on later."

Oatmeal pulled on his favorite pair of pants. These babies had been with him through all the tough years. So what if they were a little tight now – they were still pracking lucky. And no bounty hunter leaves his house without a lucky charm. "Tape it. I'm sure this won't take very long."

It never did. He'd been on Earth nearly a year now, and in between watching reruns of MacGyver and the A-Team, he'd always managed to wrap up his cases before lunch. Oatmeal may have been a galactic screw-up who found pleasure in putting everyone he met off-side, but that made him the perfect guy for the job. Bounty hunters were supposed to like punching people and getting in laser-gun fights, and Oatmeal loved that stuff.

Oatmeal cracked his knuckles and ran a hand through his wiry, black hair. He hadn't brushed it for 23 years now and wasn't about to start. Jelly called it a mad cubist experiment that belonged in the broom cupboard, but Oatmeal didn't care. The bounty hunter business wasn't about looks.

The bounty hunter business was all about making enemies, and Oatmeal was really, really good at that. Jelly called it uncanny, Oatmeal called it a gift – but sure as hell, no matter how angelic the person, Oatmeal could find a way to annoy the prack out of them.

God makes us all special, right?

Well Oatmeal knew he was real special.

# Chapter 1

Callie stared out the window. It was a habit. Her lecturers and friends just loved to point it out to her. "Hey, Callie," they'd say, "what are you staring at out there? A bird, a plane, superman?" She wouldn't answer, just turn around and smile until she was sure they weren't paying attention again, then she'd turn right back to that window.

She couldn't explain why she stared out windows so much... she simply always had. What was she looking for? Well, it certainly wasn't a guy in a cape and spandex undies. She just liked the view. There was something about that open expanse of blue.

It was worse, much worse at night. If Callie found herself out in the country on a clear night, she could stare at the stars for hours. That was no understatement – it could be hours. This kind of leaned to her reputation of being a bit of an airhead. But she wasn't an airhead; she just got distracted sometimes. There sure was a lot of sky up there, after all....

So was it any surprise that she was staring out the window again? She was in philosophy class. She was usually interested in what her lecturer had to say, but the sky outside was just so blue today.

"So, I take it you're all prepared to write brilliant essays on the philosophical implications of the Zero Point Field, then?" The lecturer suddenly changed the pitch of his voice, and it became more insistent and direct, more noticeable.

Callie jumped. The lecturer was looking right at her.

"It is a very important field of study in the Philosophy of Cosmology. Don't you agree, Callie?" He looked straight at her.

"Yes, incredibly important." She was always good for an automatic response. It came from spending so much time dissociated from reality and staring up at the sky – she was well trained in giving immediate, if derivative, answers. Usually, she'd just say yes – which sometimes got her into a lot of trouble....

"Feel free to expand on that answer." The lecturer hadn't shifted his gaze; it was clear he wasn't going to stop hassling her until he'd made his point.

No, she didn't want to expand on that. Who cares what the Zero Point Field was? It was just some crazy quantum physics theory. She'd only transferred into this class because she'd been attracted to the word 'cosmology.' That meant stars and stuff, right? Apparently not....

"Well?" The lecturer was being annoyingly dogged today.

"Well, I guess I agree with your point that the... implications of the Zero Point Field have certain... implications for the study of philosophy." She flinched. Was that the best she could think of?

Some guy behind her snickered. Yeah thanks, buddy, she thought, real helpful.

"And those would be?" The lecturer still wouldn't let up.

Damn, couldn't he see that she didn't know the answer? What kind of a compassionate human being would force someone into publicly admitting their stupidity? Probably one that was annoyed at being ignored; she'd been staring out the window, after all....

Okay, deep breath, she thought. "The nature of belief... I think."

There was a long pause. "And? Is that it, Callie? You aren't going to mention the limitless power that could potentially be derived from the field?"

"No sir, because that's not really philosophy; that's physics and engineering."

The lecturer smiled. "Good answer, Callie. That is physics and engineering – and there's a hint for your essay. I don't want to read long futuristic fantasies of cities powered by Zero Point Technology. I don't care if you think that in 100 years we could all be zipping around in spaceships or transporting from planet to planet – because that's not philosophy, that's Star Trek. In short, I want a long, well-researched, boring analysis of the philosophical implications at play. I want you to tell me how this affects our notion of belief, time, and causality." The lecturer ticked the list off on his fingers, his gaze thankfully moving from Callie and shifting around the other students in the room.

Callie breathed a sigh of relief, and when she was sure no one was paying attention to her anymore, stared straight out that window again.

...

Oatmeal leaned on his rake. He'd seen this on TV. If you leaned on your rake just right, people would stay the prack away from you. There was something about a surly, rough-looking man leaning on a stick with spikes that freaked people out. Farmer from hell, maybe? Or escaped psychotic killer? It didn't matter what people thought he looked like, they all came up with the same conclusion: "that crazy guy's got a rake! Let's stay the hell away from him."

Oatmeal shifted his shoulder back until the muscles down his side stiffened ominously. A couple of students crossed the lane to get away from him. Wise choice, kids, he thought as he stared at them.

After several minutes of posing, Oatmeal toted the rake and went back to clearing the leaves. Undercover jobs were the worst. Well, not always; if he got to go undercover as a bouncer at the roughest club in town, then he wouldn't be complaining. But a gardener at a pracking university? Shoot him now. Literally, a gunfight would be the only thing that could spice up this drab work.

What made it all worse were the snotty little kids. Oh, they thought they were so smart. Smart, ha? Did they have laser guns and a broken spaceship? Prack no, the snots had never even been into space. Earth was still in the Technological Dark Age. So he was being looked down on by a bunch of cavemen in jeans.

The people on this planet went along living their simple little lives without the faintest clue of what really happened in the galaxy. Unbeknownst to all but the most paranoid humans, the galaxy was full of aliens, really technologically advanced ones. But even though aliens regularly visited this quaint little backwater planet, there were regulations in place that ensured Earthlings didn't accidentally find out about the real nature of the Milky Way.

One of those regulations related to appearance, obviously. Because it would be pretty challenging for a seventy-year-old bag-lady to suddenly see a giant, green Adrotan wobbling down the street. No, if you didn't look humanoid, you weren't allowed to walk around on planet Earth. Which was okay for Oatmeal; he did look humanoid. Apart from the hair, that was, which looked more like he'd made a wig out of rats he'd sewn together.

Still, he, like the Earthlings, was a direct descendent of the Old Ones. The Old Ones, with their perfect bone structures and awesome flowing hair, seeded many planets in the Milky Way, so it wasn't unusual to see a humanoid even in the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

But that these ignorant little humans were looking down on him.... Oh yeah, it was making him mad.

"Hey, get to work!" The head gardener waved at him from farther down the path.

If Oatmeal threw his rake at just the right angle, he realized with a grin, he could get the old codger in the back of the knees.

He was a bounty hunter, not hired help. He may be an incidental gardener for today, but that was simply in the interests of the galactic good. Well, more like his bank balance, but Oatmeal liked to think that his wallet was perhaps the worthiest cause in all the universe.

Oatmeal gripped the rake tightly and plunged it into a pile of leaves, raking like a man possessed. If he were a cyborg, his eyes would be glowing red from the fury of his activity.

The target he was tracking better show up pracking soon. Jelly had assured him this would be a quick and easy job. Apparently, there'd been an unusual amount of cRIM activity in the area recently. The word on the ground was that they were sniffing out a Retiree. If it was their usual game, and cRIMS weren't that creative, they'd kidnap said Retiree and extort money out of whoever cared. Depending on whose Retiree you'd picked up, the game usually paid very well.

He'd caught two cRIMS just the other week who were planning to grab the Retiree of a high-level Galactic Unity official. How the guy's identity had leaked out, Oatmeal could only guess, but that had been the biggest target he'd ever seen a cRIM try for. Oatmeal had been suitably recompensed of course, so he could only hope this target would be the same. He could use more money; he could put it in a jar under his bed and caress it every night.

Plus, he was starting to get good at this. He'd made his bounty hunting into a specialized job. Not many other hunters specialized in tracking down targeted Retirees and snatching them from the jaws of death. But there was good money to be had.

Retirement was a lucrative business when it came to crime – there were just so many ways it could be extorted for a buck. Sometimes he wondered if the technology had only been invented to keep the Galactic Police in work. Well, that was a lie; he knew, like any other citizen in the GU, why Retirement was invented. It was so they could rest.

The technology, like so many of the truly powerful devices that kept the GU running, was a throwback to the Old Ones. The Old Ones were those that came before. A race of technologically advanced beings that reigned at the beginning of the galaxy. The guys weren't just smart, they were prolific and creative to boot. Some of the stuff they developed was just phenomenally cool.

There was a little problem with the Old Ones, though; they got into a spot of trouble with a race that called themselves the Destroyers. Now, the Destroyers were one tough race; they were hell bent, not only on the destruction of the Old Ones, but on the destruction of anything they'd touched. Which would, unfortunately, necessitate the destruction of the entire Milky Way.

Why, you might ask? It was to do with the type of technology that both the Old Ones and the Destroyers possessed. They were both two races full of clever buggers, who had realized long ago the enormous power that lay within the Zero Point Field. But there was a problem, a sub-clause built into that universal sea of quantum energy. Now Oatmeal didn't really understand the particulars – it had something to do with belief – but all he knew was that when both the Old Ones and the Destroyers drew their power from the ZPF, they canceled each other out. So, in a way, it was like any other resource war the universe had ever seen – the Destroyers sought the destruction of the Old Ones so they alone could reap the full benefits of the greatest energy in the universe. Simple. And why destroy the entire Milky Way? To ensure that no Old-One technology could exist again.

So, with such a rabid enemy breathing down their necks, the Old Ones did the natural thing for a technologically developed race, and built a super-powerful weapon, or weapons, rather. They called the weapons the Ultimates. And they really were the ultimate in weapons.

But those crazy Old Ones couldn't leave it at that, hell no. A weapon is a weapon – only as smart as the people giving orders. But a weapon with a mind, a weapon with a soul, is so much more. So that's what they did; they married technology with life and created the Ultimates. After all, it is the nature of the ZPF – the nature of quantum existence – that an observer can change reality. The Old One's realized that if they stuck a person, with their own power of belief, into a machine capable of directly accessing the ZPF, they would create one scarily powerful weapon.

Oh, and they worked, they worked a treat. But there was just one problem, a problem the Old Ones really should have foreseen. Fighting destroys the soul, and the Ultimates were nothing without their souls. Without the power to believe, how could the Ultimates access the power of the ZPF?

So, what would a technologically advanced super-race do when faced with such an impossible problem? Easy, find a way for the soul inside an Ultimate to take a holiday. A little convalescence, a little retirement, does wonders for the mind. Gives you a whole new world to believe in.

And so, the Old Ones found a way to retire their Ultimates. They built a machine that allowed the mind of an Ultimate to stretch across space and inhabit a body. So, periodically, every Ultimate was Retired. Their mind was sent across to some specially grown form, and that form was set down on some planet full of sunshine and fine food. This brought the belief back to the soul, and the soul back to the machine.

But the Old Ones were long dead, the Destroyers too, and the races of the Galactic Unity – the government of the Milky Way – had other ideas for Retirement technology. Oh, of course they still used it for the Ultimates; they'd be mad not to. The Ultimates were the jewel in the galactic crown – there was no way the GU would ever risk losing them. But that didn't mean Retirement had to be set aside only for the super weapons. Heck no; the tech could be used on anyone. Grow a body, stretch the mind – with those two simple steps anyone could find themselves sunning it up on a warm M-class planet. Well, anyone with money anyway.

After all, short of the Ultimates themselves, Retirement was the most regulated technology in the whole GU. Every citizen had their real identity registered with the GU Identity Office. Didn't matter if you were a crook, a cRIM, or even a pracking Outlier – everyone was registered. So it was easy to figure out if the goon in front of you was a Retiree – all you had to do was pluck out your scanner and wait for it to blip green – easy as. Okay, so Oatmeal didn't really understand the technology, but he could understand a green blip on a screen.

All this, of course, led to crime. What crook in his right mind would pass up an opportunity to kidnap some Retiree and hold them for ransom? You could get lucky and end up with some alien king or GU official. Then all you had to do was simple extortion. Find the family, find the government – find anyone who might not want you to push said Retiree into a black hole – and bam, you've got your cash.

So much crime, just so much crime. And crime meant work. The Galactic Police rarely operated on backwater planets like Earth, which meant a lot of work for your average bounty hunter saving Retirees and smacking down cRIMS.

Oatmeal flipped his rake around in one smooth move, twisting it around in his hand as if it were a rod, then he attacked the leaves from another side. He caught a girl looking at him with an open mouth. "What is it, lady?"

"N-nothing."

"Thought so," Oatmeal ignored her and went back to raking.

All he had to do was wait here till the cRIMS attacked. If they had some kind of tip-off that there was a Retiree in the area, they wouldn't wait around long to swoop in.

Oatmeal twisted the rake again. That's when he'd catch 'em – bam, bam, and whack. The poor Retiree would live, and Oatmeal would receive his handsome reward.

...

Oh, why had she been so lazy in class? This essay was killing her! How was she supposed to write 3,000 words on the philosophical implications of the Zero Point Field? She had no idea what it was!

Callie allowed her body to droop forward, as if the two books and notepad she was carrying were heavy chunks of iron ore. She grumbled at the dark around her. She'd spent so long in the library, trying to catch up, she'd completely lost track of time.

God, it was so dark!

Callie gave a pathetic sigh and continued down the path. She just wanted to curl up in bed and never think about anything again, or maybe just eat a tub of ice cream – she was just too apathetic to tell right now.

Beside herself, Callie looked up to the night sky. There was way too much light pollution this close to the city, but she could just imagine the bright twinkling stars above. It almost brought a smile to her face.

But then there was a growl.

Her skin prickled, it was like there was a hedgehog rolling around on the back of her neck.

She waited, heart dancing in her chest, for the sound to repeat itself. After several gut-aching moments, she realized she was overreacting.

It was just some dog or something, or maybe a distressed squirrel.

But after her fright, her body became attuned to all the potential scary things in her environment. It was quiet for one, really quiet. Seriously, she could hear herself breathing – her breath all quick and irregular. Then there was the dark itself. The occasional lights set into the laneway weren't really helping. They illuminated just enough so the path was manageable and safe, but they left these great swathes of shadow in between, dark shadow.

There's nothing there, she thought to herself, nothing but your imagination running wild. Still, she was gritting her teeth so firmly it felt like she was chomping on a leather bit.

The air smelt of disturbed dirt, and the odor really caught in her nostrils. It was stifling. Almost, she imagined, like being buried alive.

Okay! Enough with the creepy thoughts! She was just overreacting. There was nothing out there.

Then a guy appeared out the shadows, and Callie screamed.

She'd never screamed so loudly in her entire life. It was like she was an actor from a '50s b-grade movie, some ditsy blond who had the misfortune of being plucked up by a giant monster.

"Prack, lady – shut up!"

She scuttled backward, her books jumping out of her arms and clattering onto the path.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," the guy tucked his hands into his pockets, "you really need to be quiet, lady."

She stopped screaming, her throat aching from the sudden burst. Her breath zipped up and down. "I, I—"

"I said quiet," the guy shook his head incredulously, "not that it matters now, of course."

Her stomach kicked. She'd almost been ready to blame her reaction on nerves and too much coffee – after all, the guy hadn't attacked her with a knife, yet. But his reaction to her scream wasn't... normal. And more to the point, he wasn't normal.

She backed away.

It wasn't that he looked creepy, per se, though there was this hardened look to his eyes. In fact, he looked more like an '80s glam rocker than your average mugger. His hair was totally bizarre and chunked into these thick, angry looking spikes. He was tall, too, and lean. But strangest of all were the pants; they were tight, real tight. He seriously did look like a glam rocker....

"Oh great." The guy wasn't paying her the slightest bit of attention; he was just staring off through the shadows, one hand on his hips, the other hanging loosely by his side in defeat. "We've got company."

Callie was still backing away. She couldn't help it; she didn't know what else to do. Was she supposed to pick up her books and walk away? Or was she supposed to strike up a conversation with the guy, apologize that she'd screamed like a banshee, and ask him where in the hell he'd gotten those pants?

But then someone grabbed her, and Callie's priorities changed. Two incredibly powerful arms circled around her and drew her into a crushing hold.

She didn't have time to scream, nor did she have the breath.

"Pracking cRIMS." The glam rocker pulled a gun from his pants, from somewhere in his pants, and shot the guy who was holding her.

Crack!

A beam of light lanced from the gun and seared past Callie's face, collecting the guy that held her right in the kisser. It was hot, it was bright, and it certainly wasn't a bullet.

He fell to the ground beside her, this huge, giant of a man, his heavy arm coming to a rest over her cute little ballerina shoes.

Callie opened her mouth, but nothing would come out.

"God, you guys are stupid." The glam rocker used the butt of his strange looking gun to scratch his thigh. "Grabbing the girl right in front of me – seriously, guys."

She was twitching, she could feel her whole body shaking, but there was nothing she could do.

Another figure loomed from the shadow beside a tree and dashed toward them. This guy had his own gun and squeezed off several shots. But the glam rocker, despite his tight pants, pulled into a tank roll and leaped out of the way. Then he twisted his own gun to the side and shot off several bursts of light.

Thunk. Another huge guy hit the ground by Callie's feet.

The cold was phenomenal. She'd never felt such a chill race through her chest. It was adrenaline, right? It was pumping through her system and diverting her blood to her limbs. It was telling her, even though she wouldn't listen, to run the hell away.

The glam rocker twisted on the spot, throwing himself flat on the ground and squeezing off several more rounds that connected with something off to one side of the path.

Thunk.

The glam rocker dusted off his hands, stowed his gun, and grinned. He walked back toward her, his swooshing pants the only sound in the suddenly silent night.

Callie opened her mouth; she could feel the scream rising in her chest. It was like a hurricane whirling forth from her lungs.

The guy put a single finger to her lips.

She froze.

"Don't go screaming the house down yet." He produced a little slim device from his pocket and pressed a button. Callie eventually tore her eyes from the single finger a centimeter before her lips, and she watched.

The device blipped, and the screen turned green.

The guy eventually took his hand back, made a small triumphant fist, then pointed at her. "Retiree," he said with an enormous grin.

"Retiree," she repeated dumbly, her automatic responses taking over.

"That's right, kid. And it was just lucky for you that Bounty Hunter Oatmeal came along at the right time. I would have hated to see what those cRIMS would have done to you."

Callie swallowed.

"I mean, one of those guys was huge. He looked like a tree trunk – a really ugly tree trunk."

"W-w-who a-are you?"

The guy stowed the device in his pocket before shooting an annoyed look at her. "I just told you kid – Bounty Hunter Oatmeal."

"W-w-who w-w-were—"

The guy, Oatmeal apparently, looked at her with a sarcastically expectant look. "Who were the other guys? cRIMS kid – they were k-i-d-n-a-p-p-e-r-s."

"Oh, my god," Callie felt like she was going to choke, and quickly put a hand up to her throat. "What did they want with me?"

"You're a Retiree! Look, do I have to continue to repeat myself? Pay some attention, lady. The guys were cRIMS who wanted to kidnap you, because you," he pointed that same finger at her, "are a Retiree."

She just whined, whined like a dog left out in the cold. This couldn't be happening to her....

The guy shook his head. "I guess you don't have any memories of being a Retiree then – they do that sometimes," Oatmeal smiled suddenly, and it wasn't the nicest of smiles. "They usually only do it for the really big identities, though. That or the sad losers who want to forget their lives for a couple of years." He looked sideways at her, appraising her whole body with swift, darting eyes. "I'm not sure which you are. But you better not be a sad loser, kid, you better be someone important with lots of money."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Gradually, painfully, her nervous system was settling. Oh, she'd be buzzing for several days, but the immediate threat seemed to be over. That just left her in a darkened laneway having a nonsensical conversation with a glam rocker that called himself Oatmeal....

Callie sucked in another jerky breath.

"Just calm down, kid; you're in no danger now," Oatmeal looked right at her.

She looked back. This was one of those moments, right, where you had to choose whether to trust someone or scream and run like the wind? Her friends always said she was gullible; she'd always try to look for the best side of everyone... but that wasn't quite true. Callie just wanted to believe in people. But could she believe in this guy?

"So, what's you name kid? Or, sorry, what's your Retired name?" The guy kept staring at her.

Callie took another moment to decide. He wasn't that creepy, right? Behind his eyes, there did appear to be a flicker of... decency? And the way he held his shoulders, it wasn't so much aggressive as defensive.... And defensive wasn't necessarily bad... right?

It was clear that he wasn't really a nice guy, but under that gruff glam-rocker exterior, there was a nugget of something worth believing in.

Callie took a breath. "My name is Callie."

Oatmeal shook his head. "That doesn't tell me a thing, Callie. I don't suppose you have any idea of whose Retired mind you are?"

She looked at him dumbly. She may have just decided that this guy wasn't a homicidal psychopath, but she hadn't ruled out him being just plain crazy. What was he talking about? "I'm not Retired; I'm only a student."

Oatmeal took the device from his pocket again and pointed to it. "Green light, honey. I know what that means." He stowed the device again, right next to the holster of his strange gun.

She stared at it. "What is that thing? I've never seen a gun like that before, was it experimental?"

Oatmeal looked at her like she was an idiot. A look his long, sharp face was made for. "Experimental? They've been using these for years, lady. This is your standard photon ray-gun, nothing fancy."

"Standard photon ray-gun," she repeated the words carefully, "right."

If the guy was crazy, she'd just walk away. She'd walk back to the library and call a cab. It was simple.

But then again, it wasn't simple. The guy had a ray-gun, and he'd just shot three impossibly huge guys.

Callie swallowed.

"I guess this is a lot for you to take in, ha?" Oatmeal scratched his head, his hand momentarily disappearing within his monstrous hair.

She nodded slowly. "I guess."

"Well, you better get used to it pretty quickly, because those guys have probably got friends."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"But," Callie suddenly found herself filled with nervous tension. With every breath she took, her initial reactions of fear and shock were replaced by burning questions. "But, but what's going on here?!"

"Lady!" Oatmeal's voice was sharp and loud. "I just told you! Stop making me repeat myself; it's infuriating. I'm a bounty hunter, you're a Retiree, the cRIMS wanted to kidnap you, and that is the end of the story."

Callie latched onto the one thing she understood. In times of stress, she was always apt to babble, and she could feel the chatter rising to the surface. "A bounty hunter, ha? So you... hunt down people who have violated their bail, right?"

Oatmeal blinked, the only time he wasn't staring at her with that unflinching gaze. His eyes were constantly moving, constantly alert – like little video cameras continually refreshing his view of the world, waiting for the crooks to dash on screen. So a blink from Oatmeal was a good thing; it made you feel less like a despicable crim waiting around to push over old ladies. "Look, lady, I'm a bounty hunter."

"Yeah, I get it; I've seen the TV shows – you guys run around and catch deadbeats who have skipped bail or something." Callie crossed her arms and took a breath, trying to calm her break-neck babble.

Oatmeal crossed his own arms, and it was unlike any move Callie had ever seen. It wasn't like a jock angry at some nerd for hitting on his girlfriend, or a professor annoyed that you handed your assignment in two months late. It wasn't even like a mafia boss out of the movies trying to psych out some soon-to-be-dead guy. No, it was real slow and calculated. If Callie had to guess, she'd say that Oatmeal had practiced in front of the mirror about a zillion times. Every muscle in his sinewy arms flexed in a neat sequence. It was like a countdown....

"Firstly, stop staring at my arms. Secondly, I'm an alien bounty hunter."

She laughed out loud, right in the guy's face. She had to, right? Alien Bounty Hunter? Give me a break!

He didn't seem too pleased. He obviously wasn't the kind of guy that appreciated teenage girls laughing in his face. In fact, he didn't look like the kind of guy who liked anyone laughing in his face. The way his forearms were twitching made it pretty clear he was one twitch away from picking her up and throwing her head-first into a bin. "Hey, lady, I have an idea: why don't you shut up and stop laughing at the guy who saved you?"

She giggled into a half-hiccup. She was still way too wired, and she really didn't think this guy was going to hurt her. But people did that, right? After a huge shock, they'd start laughing for no apparent reason, some kind of deep-rooted simian reaction to fear, right? Well, she did have an apparent reason – a glam rocker alien bounty hunter had just saved her with a standard photon ray-gun.

"Okay lady, you need to shut up now," Oatmeal twitched his head down a notch, until what little light there was shone through his spiky hair and cast angry shadows across his face. "And we need to get the prack out of here."

# Chapter 2

Oatmeal shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and moved his tongue around his teeth. This was annoying; this whole situation was just a pracking pain. Saving Retirees, he was used to, but saving irritating, chatty teenage girls was new to him. And he didn't like it one bit.

He strode off down the lane, hands so firmly tucked in his pockets, the fabric of his jacket stretched around him like an a-frame. The girl was having trouble keeping up; he occasionally caught glimpses of her stumbling along behind him like a little kid, incapable of maintaining an even pace and negotiating the tiny cracks in the pavement all at the same time.

Oatmeal smiled to himself. She better be worth all this trouble. She better be some mega-rich official. He wanted his just rewards on this one.

"He-y," she stumbled again, her breath catching in her throat, "p-lease wait up!"

He drew to a halt and turned slowly. This kid couldn't even walk properly – really, who the prack had he picked up? Was she the daughter of some rich merchant who wanted to get his clumsy child as far away from trouble as possible?

Oatmeal watched Callie collapse her hands onto her knees and suck in a breath. "I've had a bit of a shock, buddy," another huge breath, "I just can't keep up! Please slow down."

He appraised her with narrowed eyes. Oh yeah, the kid could totally be some spoiled brat who was sent to Earth to get them the prack away from anything important or easily breakable.

She pumped in several more breaths. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Why? Because the kid was weird looking. She had these huge, brown bug-eyes, and was tall and slender, with this phenomenal sheet of straight black hair with a neat fat fringe that stopped at her eyelashes. Seriously, it had to be a wig. There was no way that was natural. But then again, why the prack would anyone want a wig like that? Every time she made the slightest move, her hair would swish around her face like a wet sheet in the wind.

Well, she wasn't ugly, exactly. It all depended on whether a lanky bug with sleek hair and no coordination did anything for you. Oatmeal, on the other hand, liked his women with pluck, spunky short hair, and preferably no intention of hanging around. Callie looked like the kind of girl that would hang off your arm and scream every time she saw anything at all.

Oatmeal crossed his arms. Give me a break, he thought, he better be able to get rid of this Retiree by tomorrow.

Callie eventually straightened up and took one more little breath. "Thanks for waiting for me. Sorry about that," she smiled, "but I'm not really much use to you if I'm just stumbling along out of breath, am I?"

He really hated people that found the need to smile after every sentence. What was she smiling about, really? She'd just been attacked by a gang of huge cRIMS, and if he hadn't come along, who knows what they would have done. She shouldn't be smiling; she should be curled up into a ball of shock, amazed that a super cool alien bounty hunter had managed to fight off her three huge kidnappers without breaking a sweat.

But oh no, she was smiling again. Her eyes were darting around a bit, as if she was uncomfortable with his silence, but never did that smile shift.

"You know," she ran a hand over the cover of one of her books she'd picked back up after the fight, "I kinda always knew there was life out there."

Oh great, here we go.

"I mean, there just had to be," she looked up at the night sky, "with all those stars up there, it wouldn't make sense for us to be alone in the universe."

Oatmeal put a fist up to his head and hit the bridge of his nose lightly. Why did he have to put up with this? Who cares what some ditsy kid thought about the probability of life in the universe? Not him!

"So... are you human? Because you look... almost normal," she asked casually.

"Excuse me? Almost normal? What the prack is that supposed to mean?!"

"Oh, no... I didn't mean it like that."

"Look, lady," Oatmeal squeezed his crossed arms closer to his chest, the fabric of his jacket scrunching and squeaking. "I'm a human, just like you. We're both descended from the Old Ones, kid. Though I say both of us – you're in an artificially-grown body."

Her smile looked nervous, but if anything, she just put more effort into it – making her lips curl up until her cheeks were forced right under her eyes. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean it like that.... Old Ones? Who are they?"

Oatmeal turned and pushed off along the path. He needed to get rid of this chick before his brain exploded.

She shuffled along behind him. "You said we were both descended from them. And you said my body was grown – what do you mean? Who are the Old Ones, and why was my body grown?!"

It was going to be a long night.

...

Callie put a hand on her chest, the other still clutched tightly around her books. The pages from her notebook, the ones that held the notes for her essay, were crunching and ripping against her as she stumbled along after Oatmeal. She should stop, straighten them, and secure her precious notepad between both her library books, but she couldn't get the chance. It was like this glam rocker was late for a revival concert; he was trooping down the laneway at a brisk jog.

Her heart still hadn't calmed down from her shock. Really, why would it have? In fact, all things considered, she was taking this remarkably well. She'd just been attacked by criminals who wanted to kidnap her, apparently, and had been saved by an alien bounty hunter who called himself Oatmeal. She wouldn't believe it; she shouldn't believe it... except she was still following this guy.

Aliens, ray-guns, and something called Retirees. This was straight out of a sci-fi film, one with a really low budget and a hell of a lot of hairspray. Except it wasn't, was it... Because she was still following this guy... and she kind of believed what he'd said. He had a ray-gun, after all.

"Lady, would you hurry up!"

"Sorry." She clutched her books tighter and just ignored the stitches that were developing in her side. Her mouth tasted so strongly of metal, it was as if she'd swallowed a hand-full of iron shavings. She'd never received a shock quite like she had tonight. Her life was, by and large, very peaceful and very safe. So, all things considered, she'd taken her almost-kidnapping by aliens very well. Maybe she was just tougher than everyone thought.

Oatmeal grumbled something under his breath. She caught the words "Retiree" and "money," but couldn't make out the rest.

"Where are we going?" she thought out loud. Did he have a spaceship? Would he take her to some government facility that dealt with compromised "Retirees"? Or was he just taking her around the block to a funny looking tree because he really was insane?

"I'm taking you to Jelly."

She winced. If she'd wanted him to appear sane, taking her to see 'jelly' was the last thing she wanted to hear. Would Ice Cream and Sprinkles be there too?

"We need to figure out whose Retiree you are before we can... alert the proper officials."

That sounded promising, almost rational, and he hadn't mentioned desserts again, which was nice.

"Jelly's got an ID scanner; that should do the trick."

"ID s-c-anner?" Callie's voice went all bumpy as she raced down a set of stairs, stairs which Oatmeal had jumped down blithely. The guy had the coordination of a gymnast, with equally tight pants to boot.

"It'll tell us who you really are, kid."

"Oh." Who she really was? That was easy; she was Callie Hope, a lazy stargazing student of nineteen. She might not understand what this Oatmeal guy was talking about, but she still knew exactly who she was. "You know, maybe there's been some kind of mistake." Callie wanted to catch up to the guy and pull him to a stop, but that would be like coaxing a charging bull to halt by grabbing its tail. "Maybe those guys got the wrong target – maybe I'm not a Retiree at all."

"Stop annoying me, kid, and hurry the hell up. You want more of those goons to show up?"

Maybe she just wasn't getting through to him. She didn't feel like she was someone else, so how could she be a Retiree? "Oh, right. But honestly, Oatmeal... are you sure?"

"Callie! Kid, shut—" Before Oatmeal could finish his insult, someone else called her name.

"Callie!" The call came from further down the street, and Callie recognized the voice immediately – it was her flatmate, Sarah.

Sarah trotted up to them, her stylish bob bouncing around her ears. "What are you doing out this late? You're usually at home watching TV by now." Sarah put her hands on her hips and bobbed her head to the side. "And who is this?" Sarah's voice peaked the way it always did when she saw someone she fancied. And as Sarah fancied every guy she saw, her voice always settled at a high tone.

Callie looked back at Oatmeal and frowned. She wasn't frowning because she was unsure of how to explain to Sarah that the guy was actually an alien bounty hunter who had saved her from galactic criminals. No, Callie was frowning because Oatmeal was posing, he was actually posing. He was standing there with his arms crossed, his head cocked to one side, and one leg bent at an angle. He looked like an attitudinal male hair model posing for a really bad statue.

Sarah straightened up. "Hey there."

"Hey," Oatmeal didn't shift his pose but nodded his head slightly. He didn't scream or shout or call Sarah a "lady" or "kid" or "honey." Nope, he just said "hey." And it was hot too. You wouldn't know it with all the screeching and grumbling he usually did, but apparently underneath that all, Oatmeal had a radio voice. It was clear and deep, but not guttural – basically hot.

Sarah had clearly noticed this as well, because one of her waxed eyebrows arched. "I'm Sarah, by the way."

"Hey Sarah." There was that voice again.

Callie looked between them both and clutched her books closer. If the guy had such a nice voice, and apparently was capable of a decent, if stunted, conversation, then why did he always shout so much?

"So are you one of Callie's friends then?" Sarah bit her lip and rolled it through her teeth slowly.

"No."

Sarah nodded.

If Callie had glasses, she'd be pushing them further up her nose right now just to double check she was seeing straight. "I um... we just met, really. His name is—"

"It's nice to meet you, Sarah," Oatmeal quickly cut in. "You a student around here?"

"Sarah's studying law," Callie offered. She was feeling a little awkward. Usually, she wasn't bothered by Sarah hitting on all her male friends. But this was different. This guy wasn't a friend, for a start; he was her alien bounty hunter savior. Things just felt weird....

Both of them ignored her.

"So, will you be around here long?" Sarah hadn't shifted her gaze from Oatmeal. It was very much like Callie no longer existed at all.

"I can be."

"Actually... we... ah..." Callie trailed off. What was she supposed to say? Where was Oatmeal meant to be taking her, anyway? Was she supposed to say that, actually, they were a bit busy and about to go into space?

"So what are you doing tonight?" Sarah shifted her weight till she was leaning heavily on one hip, her shoulders slack, her smile coy.

Oatmeal put a hand up to his hair and grinned. "Depends."

Saving me from galactic criminals! Callie wanted to scream. It was just her luck to get an alien bounty hunter who was so easily distracted. She felt kind of like M out of the 007 movies; why couldn't this guy just keep his mind on the mission?

Sarah and Oatmeal continued their banter. It gave Callie time to think. She found herself drifting away from them. Who was this guy, after all? How could she trust him; she'd only just met him! Maybe Sarah interrupting her was exactly what she needed. Callie had just been ready to follow this guy....

Callie trusted people, or so her friends told her. They said she was gullible. Callie liked to believe it was something more than that. Sure, she liked to look on the positive side of people, but it was something more than that. She usually got a strong gut feeling about whether she could trust someone.... Her gut may not be telling her to get the hell away from Oatmeal, but maybe her brain could override that.

The guy had a ray-gun, and he'd saved her from an apparent bunch of galactic criminals. But did that mean she should just follow him? Probably not.

Callie found herself drifting farther and farther away until her back came up against a wall. She was several meters away from the two of them now, and neither had noticed her leaving. Oatmeal had his back to her, and Sarah was far too interested in what was in her foreground to notice Callie skulking off. Callie would just sit on this wall until they'd finished. She wasn't about to leave Sarah alone with this strange guy, though of course Sarah sounded like she had other plans. No, Callie would sit on this wall and then, when the time was right, go home and convince Sarah never to ring this guy ever.

But then the wall leaned down and talked to her. "Retiree." A blast of warm air fluffed her hair, right beside her ear.

A hand was over her mouth before she knew what was happening, and then something sharp clicked into the back of her neck.

Callie lost consciousness immediately.

...

Now, Sarah, there was a girl that was more Oatmeal's type. The smile was cute, the hair just right, and hey, the girl obviously had good taste.

But all this led to a problem. He'd just picked up a targeted Retiree; he should really take her straight home, ascertain her identity, and call the authorities. He was gambling every moment he spent with Sarah. But hey, Oatmeal loved a good gamble.

Still, if Callie was a big target – and not some loser living out her Retired life on Earth trying to forget whatever horrors would drive someone to stretch their mind into another body and wipe out their memories – then this was dangerous. The cRIMS wouldn't give up, especially if they knew the kid was worth something.

Oatmeal sighed; he hated it when his conscience tried to tell him the right thing to do. He turned to check that the kid was there... except she wasn't. "Hey, where'd Callie go?"

Sarah blinked, or fluttered her eyelashes, rather. "Ahh... she walked home."

Oatmeal crossed his arms. "You sure? She didn't say anything."

"Yeah," Sarah waved away his comment with a carefully manicured hand. "Callie's always just up and leaving. She has her head in the clouds. Don't worry about her. She probably realized she had an assignment due yesterday, or something."

Oatmeal nodded slowly.

"Really, I wouldn't worry at all," Sarah continued, "I think I know my flatmate. She's probably idling down the street now, chatting to whoever she bumps into. Seriously, that girl will strike up a conversation with any deadbeat or loser she can find."

"Right."

"No, you don't get it; she's really weird."

"Ah ha."

"If she see's someone other people don't like, she'll actually go up to them and ask how they are or sit with them or whatever. She's just way too trusting; she'll trust anyone. Do you get it – she's weird!"

Oh, he got it alright, loud and clear. Apparently, Callie liked to court trouble, which made the fact he'd let her wander out of his sight kinda bad.

"Don't get me wrong, she's a really nice girl and all."

Oatmeal nodded as he flicked his gaze up and down the street. For a girl that was apparently hitting on him, she was kinda discussing her flatmate too much.

"She's really sweet and all, and a great cook. But yeah, kinda weird. So don't worry about her walking off – she's honestly just being ditsy."

Wouldn't he have heard her stumbling if she'd decided to take off? Wouldn't she have managed barely three steps before screaming at a slightly odd tree?

Oatmeal let his gaze settle on a very large shadow moving quickly near a car.

"Okay, Sarah, it was real nice to meet, you but I've gotta go."

"Oh, right."

He didn't bother saying goodbye again – instead, he kept the car squarely in his sights as it pulled out from the curb in a jerky but swift movement.

If she were in that car, Oatmeal would have to kill himself. He'd gone and gotten distracted just like the galactic stuff-up he was. But he was forgetting something: if this kid was a proper target, then she was worth her weight in gold. You don't let gold statues just walk off – first rule of bounty hunting, that.

Sarah called after him as he took off down the street. He'd parked his motorbike just a bit farther down the lane. His logic at the time had been free parking. Right now, he could take a parking ticket over the agonizing twenty-meter dash it had taken before he managed to throw himself onto his bike and start the engine with a roar.

He'd lost his gamble. Apparently stopping in the street to talk to a pretty face wasn't such a good idea while you were supposedly escorting a targeted Retiree – who'd have thought? Well, he had, really, but he'd dismissed it. He'd honestly thought the kid couldn't be that high a target. Still worth his time, but not something to keep firmly tucked under your arm till the Galactic Police came.

Oatmeal gunned the engine and sped off down the street. He wasn't the kind of guy to berate himself over a mistake; he considered guilt to be something that ailed people who gave a prack. But at the edge of his mind was a little bit of, ah... regret. He could have taken Callie home and had the whole thing sorted by tomorrow. Now he would be running around town all night, kicking guys and shooting goons.

Oatmeal smiled. If he put it that way, it couldn't be that bad.

# Chapter 3

There was always a problem with being the hero, well at least for Oatmeal there was. He didn't have very many heroic qualities, for one, and that kind of got in the way. You'd think it wouldn't, right? You'd think being unfettered by an emotional connection to your damsel would make the process easier. Live or die, you didn't care about the girl. It was just a job.

But yeah, the universe doesn't work like that. Oatmeal could identify several of his less heroic qualities that always affected his work. He gambled, for one, and a good hero never gambles. A good hero marches straight up to the dragon's den and beats loudly on the door, hollering some appropriate one-liner. Oatmeal, on the other hand, would hang around in the bar right until the last moment, drawing on his beer and wondering about how he could make off with the dragon's gold without actually having to save the girl.

And that was Oatmeal's real problem. He had an issue with saving women. Jelly had pointed this out on many occasions. Oatmeal was fine when it came to rescuing some seventy-year-old wilting Retiree who was more likely to have a heart attack than cough up their ID. But when it came to saving the awesomely attractive Russian model Retiree, or even the semi-attractive part-time accountant Retiree, Oatmeal always managed to get distracted. And that led to problems. It led to bigger, much more dangerous ray-gun fights or extended chase scenes. Now Oatmeal really did love action, but he also liked slumping about on the couch in his boxers watching reruns.

And he'd done it again, hadn't he? This time it wasn't the target herself, but her friend. Prack, couldn't he keep a grip for one lousy night until he figured out the kid's ID? Apparently not. Apparently, he really liked making things difficult.

"Okay Jelly, you got a fix yet?" Oatmeal flicked his earpiece once to activate it. He wouldn't touch it again for the whole night; only really bad spies and actors touched their ear piece when they talked. Plus, his earpiece was a cut above the Dark Age Technology they had on Earth. His was electric blue and about the size of a grain of sand. Oh, and it could translate any language in the known universe. Oatmeal had managed to 'appropriate' it from a Galactic Police officer once upon a time.

"Right. You know, I wouldn't have to have a fix if someone had done their job properly to begin with." Jelly's voice came loud and clear through the earpiece.

Oatmeal revved the engine until he was confident the roar managed to feed back through the com link. "Hey, shut up, kid! One more quip like that, and I'll dump you at the next orphanage I can find."

There was a moment's pause. "You've been saying that for years now, Oatmeal. You know, I just don't think you're as good as your threats."

"I said shut up!" Oatmeal took a sharp corner, leaning into it until his knee almost skidded along the road. "Just tell me where she is!"

"Fortunately, when you scanned her, I was able to copy her biometric records over. So I can get a fix on her, yes."

"You already hacked my device and picked up her bio readings – hey kid, it's almost as if you were expecting me to lose her." Oatmeal scanned his eyes across the dark street; he'd seen the car dart along a side street somewhere around here....

Jelly paused again. The kid was more than fond of a good pause. It was as if he were running through the whole possible set of responses to your statement, and knowing Jelly's mathematical brain, that was exactly what he was doing. "Let's just say I believe that, in light of some of your previous... compromised missions, I thought that it was appropriate to put in place certain countermeasures."

"Right. Pretend I understood that and insulted you accordingly. Now, you can just give me her coordinates?" Oatmeal ensured his voice was deadpan, but just a little frightening, like a mortician who hung around the dead more than the living: cold and to the point.

"Ah, yeah boss," Jelly said quickly, "I've fed them to your bike. It'll take you there on its own. So you can sit back and... relax."

So Oatmeal sat back and relaxed, as easy as that was on a speeding motorbike. He let the lights of the city wash over him. It was like traveling through hyperspace – flashes of color zipped past his eyes, straying into the distance of his peripheral vision like little blips.

All he could hope for was a run-of-the-mill gunfight and hostage recapture, oh, and that he'd be home in time to watch MacGyver.

...

Callie wasn't the kind to scream, though her unorthodox run-ins today certainly were showing a new side of her. Usually, she simply sucked in a breath. If something frightened her, if there was some loud noise or she stubbed her toe or a car backfired – whatever the surprise stimulus – Callie reacted quietly. It was just part of her personality, she'd figured; she took shocks silently, internally. But today was testing everything. Today she was experiencing things she'd never experienced before, things she'd never even imagined possible.

For instance, there was a man with thick, green skin looking in her ear. He was an alien, and she'd leaped to that conclusion all on her own. He looked like a green donut man complete with two tiny beady eyes. Why did her first extra-terrestrial experience involve so many desserts?

"Okay humans, keeps still please." The donut man continued to do whatever it was he was doing behind her ear.

Callie complied. The green alien was quite polite, almost pleasant compared to her apparent savior Oatmeal.

"Just going to analyze your ID tag, won't be longs."

"Okay... and then what?" she asked cautiously. She may not be scrunching up into a ball of fear, but she still wasn't comfortable with being kidnapped by galactic criminals. She was just keeping calm; she still obviously wanted to get the hell away from them and this entire crazy alien adventure. She was just keeping calm...

"Thens we find outs who you are. Then we calls your parents or your kids or the government – whoever would miss you most." The alien spoke slowly, not only accommodating for his lisp (an understandable feature considering his two gelatinous lips) but allowing Callie time to follow. "Then we hits them for a ransom. They pays it and then we lets you go. Unless you're a really big target, thens we wait for an even bigger ransom."

Okay. That sounded... believable. "But ah..." there was one thing that had been bothering Callie, one thing she really didn't want to think about. One thing that could shatter her thin layer of cool. "What happens if they don't pay? Or you don't find anyone that would ah... care if I was taken hostage?"

The alien stopped what he was doing for a moment to place a fat hand on her shoulder. "Then we push you into a black hole."

Oh.

In that one moment, Callie's façade of indifference shattered. She was going to be pushed into a black hole.

"Hardly ever happens... though it did happens last weeks." The alien moved around to face her, and he looked very thoughtful indeed, as if he were conjuring up a pleasant memory of soft sand and gentle sun, not pushing a helpless person into a black hole.

Oh.

"Don't worries – there's no black holes in this system, so you'll live for a couple more days. Nots saying your family won't pays, just saying that options is there."

"Yes, I understand," Callie's voice was artificially high. It didn't sound like her at all; it sounded more like a mouse. "I... does... does the black hole... does it...." She wasn't sure what she wanted to ask, and couldn't really think of a better way of getting there other than mumbling nervously. She keenly, desperately wanted to know why exactly you had to push someone into a black hole to kill them – why not just shoot her? Not that she would suggest such an option, but was it really that hard to kill a 'Retiree'?

"Forgots, you don't have your memories from before you Retired. Wells, basically the real you is out in the galaxy somewhere being kept in one of the GU's Dream Rooms. It's kind of like being in stasis. Yours body is kept alive whiles your mind is stretched to a new body." The alien, thankfully, kept up his slow and even tone. He could be a teacher with his patience for explanation... well, if he wasn't already gainfully self-employed as a criminal, that was.

Callie was only just following. All she could think of was a room in some giant alien building with lots of people tucked up into cots as they dreamed of their lives far away – like a nursery school for adults and aliens.

"Whens you Retires your mind, a body is grown for you and its DNA is laced with a tracking signal – so as people can tell that you is a Retiree," the green alien put a pudgy hand to his chest, "like mes. Then your mind, your original mind, is stretched into the new body. It's all quantums human. Then you send your Retired body out to a real nice planet and lives a nice holiday. But if that body were to have an accident, yours mind would just stretch back like a spring."

So if she died here... she'd go back to being whoever she was?

"But if we push yous into a black hole, then your mind will be destroyed, and no more lifes for you."

"Oh." Callie shivered. There was nothing quite like knowing the conditions for your murder.

"Likes I said," the alien looked down at the device in his hand, "we'lls see."

"Hmm."

There was a long pause. Callie found herself looking around the dark and dank room. It looked like it ran off some kind of store and was used as storage or something. The ceiling was low and slung with dangling fluorescent lights that helped to bring out the yellow-green tones in her captor's skin. She was on a chair somewhere in the center of the room, with a good view of several empty metal shelves.

It was just like a movie... except it was real.

She was imprisoned by aliens who wanted to destroy her mind, and she had an essay due tomorrow.

Callie tried to breathe a little deeper, anything to regain her calm. She didn't want to lose it here. She didn't believe she was a Retiree, so this alien would have no reason to kill her once he figured that out for himself. This had all been a mistake... if she really was a Retiree, then she should have memories of her other life... if Retirement was a holiday, didn't it make sense to maintain your memories so you could enjoy it?

"But," Callie didn't want to be too forward in her questions; she was trying to squeeze her alien kidnapper for information, and who knew how he would react. But she needed to know. Oatmeal had mentioned something about it too. If Callie really was a Retiree – and she still didn't believe a word of it – but if she was, why didn't she remember her real life? She took a little breath. "Why don't I have any memories then? Why don't I remember who I was before I Retired?"

The alien shrugged. It was like watching a slinky move downstairs: his movement shifted the weight through his belly in slow boings. "You is either very importants or a deadbeat losers who wanted to forget yourself."

That's what Oatmeal had said: either important or a total loser. She really didn't like either of those options. If she was a loser, then presumably no one would pay her ransom and she would die. Or if, on the other hand, she was really important, then the alien had already admitted they'd keep demanding more money for her – she wouldn't be getting free anytime soon.

Callie tried to smile; she always tried to smile. Okay, so things weren't going her way, and as far as she could tell, that was all down to one glam rocker alien getting too distracted to save her.

But it would all be okay in the end, right?

...

Oatmeal stowed his ray-gun and sighed. Why did things always have to prack-up on him? He looked at the giant guy casually dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and aviators, and sighed again.

He'd just run into an undercover Galactic Cop. Wow, today was really not worth the effort.

The cop crossed his arms. "Bounty hunter. What are you doing running around town with that itty-bitty gun of yours?"

Oatmeal crossed his own arms. Man, GU cops were bad at trash talk. Itty-bitty gun? Was that the worst they could do? Seriously, he usually drew more flack for his pants and hair. But then again, this idiot was wearing shades at night and probably couldn't see a half-meter in front of his nose.

Oatmeal had followed Jelly's directions, and he headed for the seedy side of town. He knew it well; it was where most cRIMS and Offworlders gathered. There was an active subculture of aliens, Retirees, and space bums like himself. Oh, and GU police, apparently.

The streets around these parts were dark and closely packed. The buildings were old and dilapidated, with plenty of poky attics and basements for hiding offworld tech, should the Galactic Police, or GP, do a raid. It was illegal to stockpile GU technology on a planet that wasn't technologically advanced.

But Offworlders were no dummies; they knew how to hide themselves. They weren't about to march up to an average Earthling and reveal the true nature of the galaxy or offer them a cheap ride in a spaceship.

So the Offworlder section of town wasn't immediately recognizable as such. To your average Earthling, it would just appear to be an ill-kempt strip of buildings, selling everything from books (replicated, not printed, of course) to gardening supplies (he wasn't quite sure which alien air-head had decided to start a nursery in a dank and cramped shop). But to an Offworlder – to a person that had experienced the galaxy, seen the sights, and smelled the heady, often very suspicious smells – this place was a little slice of home.

Well, it would have been if he hadn't run into the GP. What were they doing here? They never came to Earth. That's why he was here – to fill in the gap of law enforcement when it came to backwater planets like this one.

The galactic cop, looking remarkably like a human cop, flicked the corner of his lip up. "What are you working on?"

Oatmeal took a moment out from crossing his arms to scratch his head. "Why, I just can't remember... sir."

The other corner of the cop's lips twitched up. Now he was sneering fully, and the look really sat well with his brick of a face. "Got readings of activity out at the Uni, you know anything about that?"

Oatmeal made it apparent that he was thinking hard by grabbing his chin and scrunching up his nose. "Hold on, I'm just thinking here.... No, I'm pretty sure it wasn't me."

"Really?" The cop pushed his aviators further up his nose. "You sure you aren't getting in the way of a Galactic Police investigation?"

Oatmeal scrunched his nose further. It was a hard question. "No, sir. But, sir, may I ask a question of you?" Oatmeal put extra sugar in his voice.

The cop was really snarling now.

"What are the GP doing out on this backwater planet?"

The GP grated his teeth. He probably thought it was intimidating. "Something's going down, kid. Something big. Haven't you read the news?"

Oatmeal clapped his hands together. "News?"

Now the guy was smiling, and Oatmeal was finding it a little worrying. "The President made an announcement a while ago – big news."

Oatmeal felt his neck start to itch. "Yeah?"

"Especially for a little deadbeat bounty hunter like you – this'll just change your world."

"Yeah?"

"They've changed the ID laws; hopefully it'll mean we won't have to rely on scum like you to do proper GP business on these backwater planets."

"Yeah..." every time he said it, Oatmeal's voice dropped a tone.

"The Identity Office has locked out all Retiree codes. Now the identity of a Retiree can only be accessed at the Identity Offices on Tera, the Galactic Homeworld."

Oatmeal's face felt like it was falling off.

"There were too many kidnappings and bounty hunter scum like you," the cop pointed a huge branch-like finger at Oatmeal, "making too much money picking up rewards. So they locked out all remote access to codes. Now the only way you can remotely access an ID is by a secure line from a GP transport. Sure, it makes our job slower, but if it means putting up with fewer kidnappings and bounty hunter scum, then it's a happy trade off."

"Only remotely accessed from a GP transport..." Oatmeal repeated dumbly.

"Oh yeah, buddy – you're out of a job. Now, feel like telling me what you were doing at the Uni?"

Oatmeal shook his head. "So, what are the GP doing on Earth then?"

"Let's just say we're expecting some kind of backlash."

"Backlash..." Oatmeal intoned the word with a dead voice as he analyzed what it meant. They were sending the GP to any planet with Retirees just in case the cRIMS didn't take being locked out of the ID databases too kindly. And by too kindly, he imagined they'd show their objections by killing whatever Retirees they could get their hands on.

"We expect a couple of cRIMS to try something," the guy shrugged, his t-shirt stretching across his shoulders, "but we'll be ready. Which brings me to my original point, again – what were you doing at the Uni?"

Oatmeal was suddenly aware that his throat was unpleasantly dry. It felt like someone had lined his trachea with sandpaper. This was some hellish news to receive from a GP punk on the street. Not only was he going to have to reconsider his career, but his immediate mission now took on a novel twist. It wasn't just a simple matter of finding Callie before the cRIMS held her for ransom. Nope, now he had to find her before they killed her in protest at those brand-new ID laws.

"Bounty hunter, what do you know? Don't make me take you in, scum."

Oatmeal cleared his throat. "Saw three big guys, probably out of growth-hormone experiments. They were along the laneway. They were looking for a Retiree."

The cop nodded, his face twisting into a straight kind of smile. "Keep talking. Where's the Retiree?"

This was where Oatmeal would have to make a decision. Crunch time. Would he tell the GP about Callie, what with the possibility of the kid winding up dead, or would he go it alone and attempt to break her out himself?

"Why aren't you talking, scum?"

What kind of guy was he, really? Was he the kind of guy who'd risk it, or play it safe and ensure that the kid would live?

Oatmeal opened his mouth....

...

The alien leaned down. He wasn't smiling. In fact, any trace of mirth or civility was lost from his green bulbous face. "I've just got some really bad news, human."

It was hard to describe how frightened Callie was. She was so aware of her pounding heart slamming through her body, she could think of nothing else.

The guy was so close she could smell his breath; it was acrid and sweet like burning caramel. It filled up Callie's nostrils until she shuddered through a cough.

"We've got a really big problem, human. You mark the turning of a whole new age of kidnapping."

Callie tried to pull back from the looming green mass before her. But she couldn't push further back into her chair; the wood wouldn't let her. She couldn't escape.

"Big news, kid, just came over the airwaves, just this very moment. Now, I call that a coincidence, don't you?"

Callie whined.

"That's what I thought, a happy coincidence."

"Please, just let me go. There's been some mistake, there's been some mistake!"

"Oh yeahs, theres been mistakes. Those GU bugs have gone and locked us outs. Well, we'll see how theys like it when their Retirees wind up dead."

Tears began to streak down Callie's cheeks. They tingled against her burning hot skin. "Please don't, please, I'm not a Retiree – I have nothing to do with anything."

"Do any of us have anythings to do with anythings at all?"

"What?"

"It's all overs, kid."

"No!"

# Chapter 4

The Dream Rooms were large. They had to be to fit all those sleeping souls. They were a string of interconnected units set aside as a complex in the foothills of Planet Ter, homeworld of the Galactic Unity.

200 years ago, the exact same place was used to store archived technology dug up from various homeworlds across the GU. 500 years before that, it was used as a grain storage area, and 1000 before that, as a windbreak for passing travelers to set up their campfires and fend off the cold nights of Ter. The area had excellent drainage and was protected from the brunt of the wind, sun, and rain by the large vertical peaks that swept up behind it. Location, location, location: good real estate is cherished, even this far from Earth.

And then there was the view: it was spectacular. Most of the rooms packed full of various sleeping aliens were well inside the building, away from the view, the sunshine, and the light. The radiant night sky of Ter, with its clear views of so many close stars, would be lost on sleeping beings dreaming of their Retirement.

There was one exception: one room of dreamers that was set right up the top of the complex, just before a huge glass wall with unparalleled views of the sky above and earth below. This room housed the Ultimates.

There are citizens of the GU that doubt the Ultimates even exist, how could they? Superhuman weapons designed to protect the GU from the threat of the Destroyers, imbued with impossible powers – how does that even make sense? Surely it is more logical to assume that they are a fabrication of the ruling class; a nice story told to dissidents and the dissatisfied to keep them quiet.

Then again, if a citizen really did doubt the existence of the Ultimates, they had likely been living under a really big rock for most of their lives. Every other citizen knew with 100% certainty that they existed. They were everywhere. Billboards, statues, games, merchandise, movies, the news – they were everywhere.

The GU knew the power they held, and more than that, they knew the cost of letting their citizens believe that they were unprotected. Unprotected citizens start getting preoccupied with thoughts of wars and uprisings. So the GU did everything they could to ensure the Ultimates, and thus reference to the protection they provided, were not easy to forget.

That was why there was so much glass, so any bozo on a leisurely trip by the Dream Complex could spy their favorite sleeping Ultimate. Occasionally you'd even have a news crew float on by, doing some doco on whichever Ultimate was being Retired at the time. Some strange alien would lean out of their cruiser and get as close to the glass wall as the Complex guards would allow, and gesture to the sleeping weapon inside. They'd recount however many times an Ultimate had saved their homeworld, wherever the hell it was in the galaxy, then tell the audience the oft-repeated facts of the U's. How news crews kept pumping this out was a mystery; everyone in the galaxy knew everything there was to know about each and every Ultimate.

...

"Ladies, Gentlemen, and hermaphrodites! Today we have an exclusive look at the latest Ultimate to be Retired! Oh, this is so very exciting!" The alien presenter leaned further out of his aircraft, the winds of Ter whipping about at whatever tufts of hair he had on his bobblehead. "We all heard the announcement of the GU yesterday – they've Retired another one!" The alien paused for breath and gave an almost manic smile, then wiped off the sweat dribbling down his rolls of neck.

The Complex Guards were keeping a careful eye on the news craft, ensuring it didn't get too close to the wall and set off the auto shield, thereby frying the idiot that was leaning out at the time.

"There's been a lot of speculation as to who will be Retired. The GU Herald is giving odds of 20 to 1 that it will be Seven or Nine. The word from the Galactic Bookies is they have 5 to 1 on Eleven or Four. But ladies and gentlemen," the guy took the most rattling of breaths, "the odds I'm sure you're all waiting for have just come in." The guy pressed his earpiece and turned away dramatically. Of course he'd already got the odds – they'd been published in the Galactic Gazette the day previously – but that wasn't the point. "Yes, I'm just getting them now. The odds for the Retirement of the greatest Ultimate, the greatest weapon in the GU arsenal, are—" then he paused again; even aliens can have an overblown sense of drama, "the odds on Zero being Retired are 100 to 1! Yep, it seems the GU aren't going to let the old girl rest any time soon, not considering all that business with the recently uncovered Destroyer Tech out in the rim."

Inside the complex, inside the most important Dream Room in the galaxy, the scientists were huffing and running around like little nervous hamsters in coats. The Retirement of an Ultimate was a delicate business. Dials had to be turned and instruments watched with unblinking, analytical eyes. Levels had to be checked and rechecked, and every little blip, click, and whir had to be heeded and understood.

The Retirement of an Ultimate was a very careful business.

Meanwhile, the head of the GU, the President of whatever planet had assumed the rotating command, stood on the balcony before the glass wall and cleared her throat. Retiring an Ultimate was always a big call for the President. Their decision would be analyzed and picked over by every news agency in the galaxy. It was a careful game between assuring the public they were protected and ensuring that the Ultimates themselves were kept in peak fighting condition.

The President cleared her throat again and tugged on her official white and purple tunic.

The circling news crews stopped their babble for the moment and zoomed in.

"It is the decision of the Galactic Unity Senate that the following Ultimate be Retired for the period of a natural lifetime—"

The news crews gasped, each and every weird alien presenter leaning from their cruisers ensuring a rattling, shocked breath told their viewers exactly how important this news was. A natural lifetime was a long time to retire an Ultimate. A lot could happen in 80 whole years.

The President raised her paws. "Please, let me continue. This morning I confirmed the decision of the Security Council that an Ultimate be Retired for the restorative period of 80 years." She recapped, to buy herself some time. "Ultimates Eight, Five, and Ten will be brought out of Retirement to fill the gap in security—"

From the news crews, to the Complex Guards, to the viewers watching throughout the galaxy, everyone shared a nervous gasp. They were bringing three Ultimates out of Retirement? That would leave, bar whoever they were Retiring, ten Ultimates in use.

The President dropped her head. "It is our decision to retire Zero."

It was silent, deadly silent, for about five seconds. Then the galaxy erupted. Beamed through so many viewscreens to every corner of the Milky Way – the impossible news that the President would retire their number one weapon, sent a shockwave through the GU.

...

But that had been years ago now, and Hans Tapper, head Dream scientist, looked up at the sleeping form of Zero fondly. For a slumbering weapon, she sure did look peaceful.

"Enjoying the view?" he asked her quietly.

Zero's form floated in a cylinder of clear energy tinged with blue. Her head lolled gently to one side, her body limp like a doll hanging on a string. But her face was turned toward to the view. No matter what way they turned her, the sleeping woman would find a way to turn back toward the view.

He remembered that the previous Head Scientist had told him she liked to look at the sky. Doctor Tapper hadn't made much of it at the time he'd nervously accepted the position, his hands jittering in the pockets of his gray coat. He had only been twenty-six back then, and accepting the important position had been a dream come true. The previous Head had been a long-lived Teriot named Itar, a native inhabitant of Ter, and he'd held his position for a phenomenal 200 years. In that time, he'd seen the Retirement of countless aliens, dignitaries, elites, officials and, yes, Ultimates.

Doctor Tapper would never forget when Doctor Itar had walked him through the Main Dream Room, right up to those glass walls, and right up to the sleeping form of Zero. It had been barely a week since they'd Retired her, and the GU were already receiving flack for not planning it better. Timing the Retirement of their greatest weapon with the actual Retirement of the long serving Head Dreaming Scientist was ridiculous. No new Head could or should be trusted with the delicate business of protecting a sleeping super weapon.

Doctor Itar had been understanding and had even laughed when Doctor Tapper begged him not to go. Accepting the Head Dreaming Scientist role may have been Doctor Tapper's childhood dream, but the thought of being responsible for Zero had kept him up every night since he'd received the official GU communiqué.

"I have to retire," Doctor Itar had said, then he'd laughed jovially, his furry face taking on a pleasant, fluffy look. "And I mean that in a very natural sense. No more dreamers for me, Doctor Tapper. But you, I think, will have no trouble with this; you're a good man."

Doctor Tapper's mouth had been so dry that he'd forgone speech for a jerky nod.

Doctor Itar had paused to look up at the sleeping form of Zero. "She will always turn to face the window, always. I have overseen her Retirement five times now," Doctor Itar had not looked down, "and always out the window, she stares," he'd said in a far-off whisper.

"Five times?" Doctor Tapper had finally found his voice, "in 200 years?"

Doctor Itar shrugged, and the fabric of his gray coat shuffled over his furry shoulders with a ruffle. "They do not like to Retire her, so they never do it for long enough."

"Is that why they are Retiring her for a whole lifespan this time?" The question had been on his mind ever since he'd read the communiqué. A whole lifetime was almost unheard of. And now he would be charged with the duty of overseeing the sleep of the greatest weapon in the galaxy, for 80 whole years....

"They never do it properly; they always wake her up before they should." Doctor Itar had looked at him keenly. "They've been putting this off for at least 100 years now, but Zero has been online for too long, and has been far too busy not to give her a proper Retirement."

"So 80 years... should do it, then?"

Doctor Itar had shaken his head. "Yes, if they don't wake her up."

"But 80 whole years?"

Doctor Itar had laughed with the guttural rumble peculiar to his race. "Indeed, as long as they do not wake her up before her Retirement even gets started. And as long as it is restful enough."

Doctor Tapper had nodded. Ensuring a Dreamer was at rest was easy: the dials and instruments would blip and click if they picked up any change in sleep patterns. "And... if it isn't?" Doctor Tapper had taken a huge breath. There had been a terrible thought lurking at the back of his mind for some time now. "If, perhaps, her identity was leaked and her Retiree kidnapped...?"

Doctor Itar had laughed again. "Firstly, there is no way that Zero's Identity could be leaked. Only the President and the Shaman ever know of the true form of Zero's Retiree. No, the decision to pull the plug on Zero will not come from you, and it will not come from the fear that her Retirement has been compromised. Reactivating Zero is a decision that only the Security Council will make," Doctor Itar's voice had trilled as he'd spoken. "Secondly, there are many security protocols in place within Zero's Retiree to ensure her rest is always peaceful. You will face no problems with her; she will sleep soundly."

Doctor Tapper had blinked hard and swallowed. He usually had a talent for imagining the worst-case scenario. But if Doctor Itar could assure him so easily that Zero would sleep like a baby right through a whole lifetime, then he had to believe him. "So I won't have to deal with waking her up?"

Doctor Itar had smiled again. "Do not worry; no Ultimate has ever been pulled from Retirement due to worry over their safety. No, much more likely is that they pull her from Retirement for security reasons. Resist these decisions," Doctor Itar had looked up one last time at Zero and smiled so fondly it had been as if he were smiling at his own cherished child, "let her sleep. She is resilient, brilliant, and precious. Protect her Retirement no matter what happens – no matter what happens let her sleep Doctor Tapper, no matter what."

Doctor Tapper had been surprised at the passion that had laced Doctor Itar's words, but he'd been more surprised that the apparently accomplished scientist could form such an attachment with... well, a weapon. But now, as Doctor Hans Tapper stared up at Zero, he knew exactly what had happened.

In the nineteen years that Doctor Tapper had been Head Dreaming Scientist, he'd grown to feel the same as Doctor Itar. There was something so human about the way she slept. Looking up at those closed eyes didn't conjure up the image of a super weapon, just the restful face of a young woman, a person with a soul capable of true respite.

And if someone deserved sleep, it was Zero.

The more he cared for her, the more he learned. Of course, he had thought he'd known everything when he'd tentatively accepted his position – he'd written his thesis on her, after all. But that was nothing compared to watching her sleep. Checking the instruments to ensure she was comfortable, was a personal affair. He didn't dwell on the fact that with her Zero Point Rod, an armed Zero could destroy a planet. Nor did he picture her transporting through space and slicing a ship in half, or blasting through the core of some Destroyer Technology. All he saw were those gently shifting eyes.

"I hope you're dreaming of wonderful things," he continued to speak to the softly floating form. He'd received a reputation from his colleagues for talking to the dreamers, but he was Head Scientist and could do what he liked.

"Doctor Tapper, we have a problem in Unit 35 – looks like we've lost another Retiree to cRIMS." A junior scientist rushed up to him. The kid was obviously trying to keep his eyes off the floating Zero but kept on stealing tentative looks to the side.

Doctor Tapper would have smiled; the junior scientist had obviously never been this close to her. But the news that another dreamer had fallen to cRIMS was very worrying. "They are lost?" he asked abruptly.

The junior scientist looked at his feet. "We have no brain activity on scanners... looks like they pushed the Retiree into a singularity, probably a black hole considering how quick it took for their scans to fall silent."

Doctor Tapper took a deep, steadying breath. He indulged and looked up at her. He wondered if it would be any different if she were online instead of sleeping. Would the cRIMS be as brazen in kidnapping Retirees if they knew she was there to stop them? Not that the Security Council would ever agree to deploy her to fight something as mundane as kidnappers, but the thought was still in his mind. The GU had been entering a dark period of late. Things felt uncertain and dangerous, as if they were all traveling fast toward some horrible future.

He remembered when he was a boy, and there had been a proliferation of Destroyer Tech in the rim planets. He'd remembered watching on the news, as the GU had sent her to eliminate the Destroyer Technology and reclaim the planets.

With pictures of Zero cutting through powerful Destroyer machines and zipping around the galaxy, things... well... seemed safer. He could swear that the GU of his youth was a more secure, happier place. Never had such dire thoughts taken root in his mind as they did now. Each day the news from the rim would speak of the discovery and proliferation of yet more Destroyer Tech. Only last month, Ultimates Ten and Seven were sent out to the edge of the galaxy to fight the sudden appearance of an isolated group of Dead Robots – the fearsome foot soldiers of the Destroyers. They were eight-foot-tall mech with glowing slits for eyes and weapons that could rival a fully suited Galactic soldier.

Hearing the news, Doctor Tapper had worried for the most terrifying of moments that the Destroyers were somehow back. That their war with the Old Ones had not wiped them out, that they'd somehow managed to find their way back to the galaxy and were continuing their plan to destroy it completely. But his fears had been wild and unfounded. It simply turned out that some brazen group of Offworlders had appropriated the Destroyer Tech as a stunt, trying to draw the GU into a skirmish and scoring news coverage at the same time.

Still, Doctor Tapper tried to stop himself from believing that if she were awake, none of this would be happening in the first place. As he followed the Junior Scientist down the long wide corridors, he told himself he couldn't think like that. Doctor Itar had told him that no matter what, he had to ensure Zero had a proper Retirement this time around. The GU couldn't afford their greatest weapon to be running at a minimum; she needed time to recoup. And if things seemed to be coming to a head, if it felt like the galaxy was being pushed toward some horrible and uncertain future, then Doctor Tapper wanted to ensure that a fresh, fully powered Zero would be there to see them all through to the other side.

"It looks as if the cRIMS couldn't hack their Identity, so rather than let them go, they just...."

"Killed them," Doctor Tapper finished off the sentence. "So the new Identity locks are working then?" he asked despondently. The ID locks had been the Identity Office's idea. Apparently, they, in conjunction with the Galactic Police, were sick of dealing with cRIMS hacking the ID database and ransoming off Retirees for exorbitant prices. So the GP had come up with the idea to lock the Database. Now no piece of scum with a scanner could walk up to a Retiree and press a button to obtain their real ID. No, if they wanted the ID, they'd have to walk right into the Identity Offices and ask a helpful assistant. Even GP's and the Galactic Army would have to ring in to track down true Identities. And it would be a long and complicated process even for them.

With the new codes in place, all cRIMS or GPs or whoever had their hands on a scanner and a mystery Retiree would get was a single string of numbers. They'd have to call that number into the IO in order to receive confirmation of identity. While this did make things much slower for the GP, it was intended to cut the kidnap of Retirees to manageable levels. But what the GP and IO hadn't expected was that cRIMS would kill Retirees out of sheer annoyance. And now he had to deal with the backlash. "Contact the family and get me the Commissioner of the GP on the line." He pinched the bridge of his bony nose and ran a hand through his graying mop of sandy brown hair.

"Yes, sir."

Would it be different if she were awake? Would it be safer if everyone went to sleep at night knowing that Zero was there to protect them? Would the cRIMS crawl back into whatever hole they scampered out of if they knew she was around?

Would he sleep better at night?

Probably.

But he hadn't been online for tens of thousands of years. If anyone needed sleep, it was Zero, and Doctor Tapper had every intention of ensuring she got it.

No one was going to railroad the Head Dreaming Scientist.

# Chapter 5

The airwaves were buzzing. What with the news of the GU locking access to the ID database, everyone was talking.

Jelly flexed his fingers and leaned closer to his console. He hadn't expected this, hadn't picked up even a whiff on the galaxy-net. No one had predicted it. Somehow the GU and GP had kept it quiet, hiding it from the galaxy until their changes were in place.

Jelly grabbed the glass of water that sat before him and gulped it down. He wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand before setting his fingers into a frenzied type.

This was so huge. It would completely change the way he and Oatmeal worked. Hell, they may even have to find a new job at this rate.

Jelly's fingers flew so quickly over the keyboard, they looked like little frantic spiders in his peripheral vision.

He wanted to talk to Oatmeal, discuss this monumental news, but now wasn't the time.

...

"You did the right thing, bounty hunter." The GP flexed his arms and pulled his standard plasma rifle up beside him. He nodded to one of the other GPs behind him. "But if we are too late, I'm going to shoot you myself."

Oatmeal tried not to snarl his words: "I'll be sure to save myself for you then."

"Shut up, punk." The GP ticked his head to the side, and another hulking officer took up flank on the other side of the shop door.

Oatmeal decided to stay quiet for now, but he certainly wasn't shutting up.

Yes, he'd given the GP her coordinates. But it wasn't because he was a good guy. It was because the GP had pulled a gun on him and had thus given Oatmeal extra incentive to cooperate. Plus, Oatmeal may have to consider a change of careers, what with the new ID laws.

Still, Oatmeal's neck was itching with a nasty intensity. It didn't feel nice to rely on GP goons to clean up his mess.

"We've got readings on ten cRIMs and one Retiree." A thick-necked GP flicked his scanner closed and nodded.

Then they raided the place.

It was quick, quiet, and a little bit frightening. A couple of the GP's were snarling....

What with the ban on using transporter technology on Earth – something to do with the phenomenal electromagnetic field disturbance it produced, a disturbance even the cavemen humans were capable of detecting – the GP were doing this the manual way. Apparently, they planned on tagging the cRIMS through the scanners, running into the place with guns, shooting their asses, and grabbing the target before walking out again.

It was refreshing to note that police tactics never really changed.

They had opted to bring Oatmeal along, though, which was nice. They could have just as easily stuck him in some GP holding cell somewhere. But he'd insisted to the brick-faced police officer that had managed to squeeze Callie's whereabouts out of him with a gun to the stomach, that Callie was awfully hard to recognize. That and they probably wanted him close should something go wrong, so they could shoot him on sight when the Retiree wound up a little dead.

A part of Oatmeal was loving this, but the rest of him was very ashamed of that fact. He was independent, after all; he was a deadbeat, galactic stuff up bounty hunter with no friends to his name and even fewer likable characteristics – he shouldn't be getting a thrill out of a team-incursion mission. He had to actually look at the guy beside him before storming into the building – and Oatmeal always worked alone. Plus, the brick-faced officer had taken his gun away.

The guy in charge, a middle-sized guy, quite modestly built compared to the brick sheds that were now pressing themselves against the walls, pointed two straight fingers at the door and nodded.

Oatmeal ran the fingers of one hand over the knuckles of his other fist, preparing the only weapon that would matter in the end. This would not be the first time he'd gone into a gunslinger match with nothing to show for himself, and knowing his luck, it would not be the last.

But considering his luck, he sure hoped the kid, Callie, would fare better.

...

A change had come over her. There was no other way to describe it. It was simply a change.

At the height of her terror, when her frightened hindbrain had convinced her it was indeed all over, something had happened to Callie. It felt like she'd been pushed into a quiet, calm, room, and someone had closed the door behind her. It was like an override setting to her fear; just before she'd started dribbling and thrashing around in panic, something had taken over and locked the frightened Callie away.

And with her mind locked in some nice relaxing room, she was either not aware, or didn't care to notice the scene unwinding around her. The alien - her fat green friend, who had reminded her more of an overweight green teddy bear than a super hardened galactic criminal - had some time ago ramped up the intimidation to include an awfully dangerous looking weapon. It was like being in an expensive Hollywood sci-fi; the gun that had been pointed right at her head had been very realistic. But the newly calm mind of Callie simply watched with interested detachment.

The only way to describe it, the only way that could come close was that Callie had a voice in her head. And no, it wasn't the frightening hush of some long past soul or some new psychosis – it was something stranger, because it spoke to her in actual sentences.

"They will come for you soon. You will have no fear. Nothing can hurt you. Believe that you'll be fine."

And with such perfect, clear words forming in her mind as if they had been placed there by a radio or a telephone, Callie was forced to heed them. Sod the fact her kidnappers were starting to get itchy trigger fingers, somebody was actually speaking to her in her head. Aliens and ray-guns were one thing, but a talking consciousness was something else entirely.

So Callie, calm and collected, sat there as the world around her burst into a frantic hive of activity.

"You will not be harmed," the voice repeated.

Okay, thought Callie, that sounds reasonable.

And as vibrant searing bursts of light flashed around the room, illuminating the shelves, the floor, the ceiling, the aliens, and apparently, the giant men that had just come streaming through a door, Callie repeated to herself that, yes, that sounded very reasonable.

...

Oatmeal took the lead. Of course he wasn't meant to take the lead; he didn't have a gun, but that wasn't about to stop him.

Somewhere between the GPs breaking down the front door and shooting their first armed and slightly surprised alien, Oatmeal had grown weary of this game. That's when he'd legged it for the basement. He had known roughly where it was anyway; he'd been planning to rescue Callie on his own.

The guy in charge, whose name Oatmeal had certainly not bothered to remember, shouted something at the receding figure of Oatmeal, but what with the background noise involved in the gunfight, the order was too hard to decipher. It had probably been 'stop right there,' but Oatmeal couldn't be sure.

So he'd been the first down the stairs. He may not have been wearing the fancy lens attachments that the GPs had. They enabled the wearer to see clearly in any conditions, but Oatmeal did have half-decent night vision. Plus, there was a weak light on down here.

So he could see the chair in the middle of the room, settled between several rows of empty racks, right underneath a dangling light. He could see the chair and the occupant quite clearly. In fact, he could make out the calm, collected, almost refreshed smile on her face as if he'd been right next to her.

That was the thing about the look on Callie's face: it was readily recognizable even at a distance. From the bottom step in a darkened room filled with angry, sweaty aliens and gunfire, Callie's expression stuck out. Probably because it was wrong.

It was vacant, it was empty, it was wrong. It was the kind of look you might expect from a broken android; no light on behind its eyes, no sign it was ever anything more than a lifeless machine.

But Callie was no machine.

A sudden, sizzling blast whizzed over Oatmeal's shoulder. It was enough to make him forget his thoughts, however unsettling they might be, and pay attention to the heated alien gunfight he'd just walked into.

Oatmeal threw himself down the last step, and he broke his fall with a quick roll that brought him up just behind a rack of empty shelves. There were five other guys in the room. And by guys, Oatmeal meant a group of cRIMS of all shapes and sizes. It was too dark to tell exactly what species they were. But for the immediate purpose of successful identification, all he needed to know was that they were the enemy and that he didn't have a gun. So Oatmeal leaned back against the hard metal shelves that jutted into his back and pushed.

The shelf leaned back with a rattle and a whine, before completely tipping over and ramming into the back of the shelf behind it. It was a most satisfying game of dominoes that brought just the distraction Oatmeal needed. The shelves made such a crash as they slammed into the cold concrete floor that the ground shook beneath everyone's feet, paws, and claws.

By this time, Oatmeal could hear the heavily armed GPs file in through the small basement door behind him. He didn't bother to look around, just made the effort to run full tilt at the back of the giant, green alien blob, and sink his knee right up into the soft flesh below its spine.

There was a crack and a great cry of pain.

It is funny how, across the universe, no matter how strange and unusual an alien may be, most beings have a thing or two in common. Most beings, for instance, cry out when they're hit.

"Get down on the ground," one of the GPs called. "Get down on the ground!" he repeated with violent insistence.

Oatmeal dived for the gun of the big green alien, scooped it up in his hands, and managed several tight shots at a huge hairy guy with a two-meter-long tail. He fell with earthquake-like force.

Behind him, the other GP goons had already managed to finish off the two remaining aliens.

"Put down the gun, bounty hunter," the GP in charge said with a gesture of his own plasma rifle, in case Oatmeal had forgotten which way down one was.

In a relaxed, calm, but still quite quick manner, Oatmeal obliged. "Come on, I haven't done anything wrong. I got that green Belasian guy before he could kill us all with a plasma shock. Isn't that worth any points in your book?"

The guy in charge was probably a commander considering the three pips sparkling on his collar, pips that had until moments before, not been visible at all. The GP standard operating procedures stated that on a backwater planet like Earth, it was illegal to display insignias or symbols relating to the GP or the GU. But it was also illegal to engage enemy combatants without displaying your rank and colors. So the GP had these nifty little pips and stripes woven into the fabric of all their clothes that could be activated and would appear whenever they wanted. It was simple technology, but kinda cool.

The Commander looked at Oatmeal with such obvious, exasperated annoyance, it half seemed as though he was going to shoot. But he didn't. He ran a hand, that was slightly fluffed with dark hair, along the butt of his rifle. "I'll tell you what's worth points in my book, kid: not getting in the way of a GP investigation. You have quick reflexes, I'll give you that, but what kind of an idiot runs into a criminal stronghold with nothing but his bare hands to speak for him? I'll tell you what kind of idiot: the kind that washes out of GP Academy for being brazen, brash, arrogant, and downright foolhardy. Now, where is my Retiree?"

Oatmeal left it at that. The Commander was turning out to be just the kind of guy of Oatmeal didn't want to deal with. The maddening prack had obviously read Oatmeal's file, and that was just not fair. Yes, so Oatmeal had been planning on becoming a GP goon once upon a time, but he'd left those days far behind him. He'd learned the error of his ways very quickly, and had subsequently devoted the rest of his life to seesawing around the galaxy, drinking, gambling, shooting, and generally being a lawless citizen.

Oatmeal stretched a crick out of his back, pressed his lips together, and watched with wary eyes as the Commander walked up to his Retiree. Now that the excitement was dying down, Oatmeal was beginning to remember his first reaction upon seeing Callie. The weirdness was making the skin across his brow itch as if someone had tipped cockroaches across his face.

She still wasn't moving. She wasn't dead... was she? They couldn't have, not here, not in the basement of a little shop on the small planet Earth. No, you needed to be in the depths of space with a black hole or some other singularity sitting outside your window, some violent little rip in space, to destroy a Retiree's mind. You couldn't destroy the very substance of a person's being just by tying them to a chair.

But Oatmeal found himself watching with the strangest most needling ache in the pit of his stomach. Even the Commander had lost the decisiveness in his step as he walked toward the hunched figure.

...

Everything was silent now; Callie couldn't really hear much of anything at all. It was like being on the edge of sleep, shifting up and down, in and out of consciousness. Her lazy, sleepy mind could no longer offer her any explanation as to what was occurring around her. All it could promise was sleep.

There had been flashes of light, noises, a terrible clang, and then a deep rumble of a voice off to her side. But it was all just a dream; her mind was just throwing up strange images and sounds as she drifted off to sleep.

For a moment there, her eyes had been open, and she hadn't had the ability to close them. It was as if all the muscles on her face had frozen and were no longer accepting commands. But then it had passed, and she'd been able to drop her head down until she could rest it against her chest, her eyes drifting closed.

She had an essay due in tomorrow, she reminded herself; she would really have to remember that in the morning.

...

The Commander walked up to Callie, closing the last few steps between them with more hesitation, his shoulders shuddering perceptibly. Oatmeal would like to think that the experienced Commander had never quite seen anything like this before.

The guy reached into his pocket, pulled out a scanner, and flicked it open. There was a beep, and the soft green light emanated from the screen as it lit up the Commander's face in this still darkened room.

Is he wasting time, Oatmeal thought to himself, or is he just making doubly, triply sure the kid is a Retiree?

"Right," the Commander flicked the scanner closed, "we have a reading here...."

It was never a good sign when the guy in charge started ending his statements with pregnant pauses; what the hell kind of hope did they have if he had no idea what was going on?

"You don't think they did something to her, do you, Commander?" said one of the other GPs as he looked on with peaked eyebrows. "You don't think they tried some new kind of weapon out, do you? Something to celebrate the new changes to the identity database with a bang?"

Oatmeal flinched despite himself. Yes, sometimes they lost Retirees, but did the guy really have to refer to it as going out with a bang?

There was a strange feeling of anticipation in the room. Yes, Oatmeal may have dropped out of GP Academy, but he still wasn't above sharing a concerned, uncertain look with the guy next to him. The cRIMs were capable of doing some nasty things. Oatmeal had seen a lot in his time, and he really didn't want tonight to be an introduction to a whole new level of cRIM activity.

But then, just as the tension in the room peaked, something strange happened. She started snoring. And yes, it was obviously a snore. It sounded like a broken-down engine stalling in the atmosphere.

Snoring? Could you snore if your mind had been destroyed? Your body could twitch if you were dead, yes, but did that include snoring?

The Commander put a hand on Callie's neck – two fingers on her throat, in a rather arcane attempt to check her pulse. He probably had a bio scanner on him, and that would give far more accurate results than the old to two-fingered test, but there was still nothing like the touch of skin against skin to remind a human someone else was alive.

She spluttered, startled, and blinked her eyes open. "Ha?"

The Commander obviously resisted the urge to take a step back, but he raised his leg and repositioned his weight until he leaned away from her, like you might lean back from a sudden burst of flame. "You were just sleeping?"

With hesitant, darting, scared eyes, Callie surveyed the room. She blinked several times, probably waiting for the image in front of her - the implausible one with the several armed men standing around with motionless aliens at their feet - to disappear and be replaced with reality.

She was going to scream, wasn't she? Oatmeal wanted to clap his hands over his ears in case she burst his eardrums.

But she didn't; she gave a strange little whine and settled her eyes right on him.

"Do not worry." The Commander smoothed his shirt down with one steady hand and coughed. "You are now under the protection of the GP; you have nothing to worry about. Your assailants have been apprehended. As soon as your identity is confirmed, you will be released to continue your Retirement in peace."

"Oh," Callie didn't move her eyes off Oatmeal, "are you quite sure...."

The Commander flicked his eyes to one side. He obviously had no idea what she was talking about. "Sorry? Were you not informed when your body was Retired of the standard operating procedure relating to kidnapping incidents?"

It was a reasonable question, Oatmeal thought, for an ordinary Retiree. But for the kid tied to the chair, her first experience of aliens had been earlier that day when three had tried to kidnap her and ruin her homework. She wouldn't understand.

"Why am I tied to a chair?" Callie was obviously opting for asking an easier question. "And where is the green alien? And why was he so angry? And why do you have glowing dots on your collar? And why am I still tied to this chair? And you," she looked right at Oatmeal, "where the hell have you been?"

"I, ah." The Commander obviously wasn't used to such a barrage of questions. Rescued Retirees were probably usually more contained, more civil, more appreciative. "The aliens have been apprehended," he repeated with clarity, "and I will untie you presently."

"And then I can go home?" she asked a little hopefully.

The Commander frowned; it was obvious he was finding this whole thing off-putting. "No, ma'am. Then we have to double check your identity. Wouldn't you like to know why those cRIMS were after you?"

She shook her head with the finality of an old woman refusing your hand to cross the road. "It was all a mistake. They thought I was something called a Retiree, but I'm not. I'm just a normal girl."

Oatmeal watched as all the Commander's suspicions were confirmed in a moment of "ah ha" that saw his brow disappear under his hairline. "Something called a Retiree?"

"I don't know. Look, could you please untie these knots already? My hands are starting to chafe," Callie proved her point by thrashing around a little, moving her arms about as if they were stuck in her jumper.

The Commander moved quickly – a lot quicker than he'd been on the uptake – and produced a pressure syringe and stuck her in the neck with it before she could even lean away. She fell asleep instantly.

Then the Commander turned very sharply on his heel. "You didn't tell us she had blocked memories, bounty hunter."

Oatmeal desperately wanted to say something smart, you know, something to lighten the mood in this darkened basement full of angry policemen, stunned aliens, and girls tied to chairs. But the Commander was looking daggers, and now wasn't the time to quip. "I didn't know."

The Commander nodded stiffly. It wasn't a nod to say "I see," or a nod to say, "you're a pracking liar," or even a nod to say "I'm going to take you into custody and beat you until you tell the truth." No, it was the kind of nod that said: "start talking before I bury my fist into the soft flesh just between your cheekbones."

"I mean, how do you even know she's got locked memories... she could be faking it." Oatmeal winced as he lied.

"Hmm.... Let me tell you what I do with people who waste my time...."

# Chapter 6

She woke up in her own bed. She could feel the soft cotton of her pillow case against her face and smell the faint lavender scent she'd dropped in with the washing. She could see the tiny crack of light filtering in through the gap in her curtains. She could make out the shadows of her dresser and wardrobe lined up against her wall.

Everything was normal. This is exactly what she woke up to every morning. Everything the same, everything in order.

Callie yawned, stretched her arms back against her warm pillow, and rubbed at her sleepy eyes. She'd had the strangest dreams last night, she really had, though in the light of morning she was having trouble remembering them. All she had was this faint haze in her mind. She couldn't even tell exactly what it was she'd been dreaming of... just that it had been... strange.

Callie pushed herself up and collected the corners of her covers in one hand and threw them back, before twisting out of bed with another yawn. She lazily walked over to her floral curtains, the ones she'd picked up for a bargain at some going-out-of-business sale, and yanked them open.

The morning was very bright and sunny out there. There were even birds frolicking about and chirping in the tree just outside her window. Everything seemed very pleasant indeed. The tall buildings, apartments, spires, and stacks of the city were just visible on the horizon, glinting in the sun.

A car puttered out on the street, its motor wheezing like a life-long smoker. Callie pushed away from the window and scratched her arms through her PJs. Someone was cooking pancakes downstairs, and the pleasant aroma wafted through the closed door. No one ever actually cooked in her house, so this was a welcome surprise.

She raced down the stairs to find Sarah bent over a hot frying pan, checking to see if the underside of her pancake was golden brown before she bothered to flip it.

"You're cooking?" Callie couldn't keep the disbelief out of her voice. "I mean, wow. You never cook."

"I don't?" Sarah's voice was even, normal, and calm.

Callie paused with a hot pancake in her hand, ready to take a bite. It was strange. "I... guess you do." Momentarily it had felt as if Callie had descended right back into the haze of sleep. She almost couldn't remember what she'd just said... but whatever it was it didn't seem important right now....

Callie took another bite.

"Oh," Sarah tightened the ties of her apron and flipped another pancake, "I read over your essay this morning – it's really good. I'm sure you'll get top marks."

Callie paused again, a fat dollop of honey dripping onto the table from her half-eaten pancake. Essay? She'd managed to complete it last night? Wow, she must really have slept heavily to forget that. "It is? You really like it?"

"Ah ha, it's awesome. Some of the stuff in there is brilliant. I took Philosophy of Cosmology last semester, and I did the same question – your lecturer will be thrilled."

Callie wiped off the honey she'd spilled on the table with one finger and put her pancake back on her plate. "You know... I can't even remember what I wrote now; it's all a bit of a haze."

"Makes sense," Sarah turned to her and smiled, "you were up pretty late last night. That's why I decided to make you breakfast," Sarah shrugged her shoulders and widened her smile, "so you can be refreshed for your day."

"Oh... thanks, Sarah." For some reason, Callie had just lost her appetite, but she took another bite of her pancake out of politeness and smiled back. "So, what did you do last night?"

"I stayed in and watched TV," Sarah had an almost vacant expression on her face, "there wasn't much on."

"No," Callie agreed, there never was these days, just reruns....

"So, when are you off to uni?"

Callie didn't answer, she'd spied her essay on the table and had pulled it toward her. It was....

"I...."

...

Oatmeal scratched his knee and settled further into his couch. He was trying to ignore Jelly as the kid danced around the room with this wide-eyed interest. Ever since Oatmeal had crawled in the door at three, without the Retiree, but with a GP summons and a black eye, Jelly had been very keen to find out what had happened last night.

"Seriously, sir," he tried for the 1000th time, "what did you do?"

Oatmeal sunk his lips into a very telling frown. It was the kind of frown that anyone should be able to understand. With blazing eyes and a vicious tick to his head, Oatmeal was telling Jelly to shut up and stop asking questions.

"I even picked up chatter on the official lines about it. They're calling it the scoop of the century. That cRIM ring you broke up last night was a major cell with links to the Outliers and all sorts of terrorist organizations."

Oatmeal took time out from cracking his neck ominously to redouble his efforts into frowning ferociously. It felt like his lips would drag the rest of his face through the ground. "Look, kid, I didn't know it was some major cRIM cell. I just thought it was some goons in the basement. Plus, I hardly broke up their game – it was the GP."

"You went into the basement with the GP?" Jelly's eyes couldn't be wider. "You cooperated with the police?"

Oatmeal shook his head and dragged a lazy hand through his hair. Great, he'd just spilled the beans. "Look, it doesn't matter, does it? Because this is all over. The GP wiped the Retiree's memories, and she is back in Retirement, blissfully unaware that any of this ever happened. So give me a break, kid, and just forget it. Next time we go for the easier jobs."

"Right, I'll believe that when it happens."

...

Commander Line settled down into his chair and stared at the smooth screen embedded in his desk. It was time to do his report – time to inform the GP HQ of what new and important information he'd come across in his policing activities this far out in the galaxy.

There were days when everything went his way, when it seemed as though the whole of the Milky Way was working together to ensure the successful protection that the GP offered. But then there were days when everything went belly-up. Where no matter what corner he turned, there would be a hulking great vicious cRIM waiting with a phase gun to shoot all his plans to prack.

Yesterday had been one of those days. Yesterday had seen the kind of god-forsaken bad luck that had made Line on more than one occasion dream of Retirement to some fantastically sunny planet. First, he'd received the official communiqué telling him of the official changes to the ID databases, then he'd received a direct call from the Commissioner herself, and she'd pointed out in a very brisk and official manner that Line wasn't to allow any retaliatory actions by cRIMS working on Earth. Not one single being was to fall prey to the backlash of the brazen, hardened, downright evil criminal element that had built up a living from kidnapping Retirees and selling them back to the government.

The official figures fed to him this morning had put it at 5,000 Retirees currently enjoying the quaint, backward lifestyle of planet Earth. That was a lot of little people to keep safe. He'd had to beef up security in every major city and follow up every single intelligence report. When he'd accepted his posting to Earth, he hadn't expected it would be this much work.

But then yesterday had gone from worse to impossibly, horribly bad. When one of the junior officers had phoned in a call that some bounty hunter was tracking a kidnapped Retiree, Line had literally sunk his head into his hands. There was no worse time imaginable for a Retiree to get kidnapped. But at least the bounty hunter, who later turned out to be the enigmatic Oatmeal, had coughed up the Retiree's whereabouts, enabling a quick rescue to be planned. And yes, Line knew of Oatmeal. GP commanders, when they were assigned to new planets, were always given a briefing on the cRIMS and freelancers who operated there. Oatmeal had been one of the first to be listed. He appeared most notably as a prolific, if haphazard, bounty hunter. He'd taken down more cRIMS in this small section of backwater space than any other hunter. But he'd also started more bar fights, space brawls, shootouts, and just general acts of violence than any other being too. While Line had been fascinated to read the documented history of the man, it had been his GP Academy reports that had interested Line the most. So the kid had quit... interesting....

Then there had been the raid itself. It had seemed simple enough. They'd tagged the cRIMs with their scanners and had readied enough firepower and men to handle the situation quickly and efficiently. He'd opted to bring the Oatmeal character along, which had turned out to be a delightful mistake. Line had initially thought the kid could be an asset to the team. He had undergone basic GP training, and already knew the target, and apparently had her trust. But Line hadn't expected the kid to run right through the gun fight, with no weapon, like some kind of kamikaze fool.

Just thinking back on it made Line want to get the prack off this goddamn planet for good. You always got the weird ones this far out in the galaxy. The only people who bothered to Retire this far out were the losers who couldn't afford anything else, the weirdo Luddites who wanted to experience a society free from the scourge of modern technology, and the high-profile targets the GU wanted to keep the hell away from the rest of the galaxy. And therein was Line's biggest problem. It was the edge to his current raging headache and deep wish to travel away from this problem at maximum hyperspeed.

None of this made any sense. The kid, the Retiree they'd managed to save last night, Callie Hope, didn't fit into any of those categories. When he'd found her sleeping merrily through a gunfight, his curiosity had peaked. Either the kid had narcolepsy, or some switch in that brain of hers had been flicked the moment trouble had reared its ugly head. Line knew that in certain Retiree cases they did build little fuse-like switches into their minds, should the stress of some situation threaten to overcome them and ruin the quality of their Retirement. But very, very, few Retirees bothered with this feature.

Then there was the little fact Callie Hope had no memories of being a Retiree. Retiring without memories wasn't common, but it wasn't unheard of either. Few people opted for going on a holiday without being able to remember who they were. They were obviously there to forget their lives (in which case drugs and alcohol were an easier and quicker method than Retiring) or someone didn't want them to remember. Of these two options, Line didn't like either.

Something just didn't add up here. No memories and an off switch, who was this kid?

Was she some high-profile GU official Retiring as far away as she could get from Central Command? Had they blocked her memories because she knew far too many juicy secrets to be allowed to simply wander around unprotected? Or was she some mega galactic-criminal who had gone into hiding as a Retiree while the hunt for her grew cold? It wouldn't be the first time an under-fire Mafioso had chosen to lie low by Retiring to some tiny little planet far away from the usual GP haunts.

Line's console beeped again. It was long and insistent, the electronic equivalent of "prack you, listen up!" Patiently he thumbed through the request again. According to the new regulations, in order to successfully identify a Retiree, he had to put a request through to GP Command who would send the code through the most secure channel in the Milky Way to the ID Offices on Ter. But what with the whole business only coming online yesterday, Line kept on having his request denied.

Denied, denied, denied. If he had to stare at that red flashing text telling him to "try again later" one more time, he'd put his fist right through the viewer. He wanted to know now which it was: Was Callie Hope some deadbeat loser who had gone all out and ticked every feature that would make her forget her horrible life? Or was she a high-profile target who needed immediate protection? Or, better still, an incredibly important criminal whose apprehension would award him a promotion and a commendation from the President herself?

He'd made the decision on the spot not to take the kid into custody but to return her home with wiped memories so she couldn't remember a speck of her crazy night. He'd put a unit on to watch her house, should any other developments arise, and he'd sent that idiot Oatmeal home with a black eye and a summons to appear in court for obstructing a GP investigation. Line felt like he'd done everything he ought, but that wasn't giving him a sense of accomplishment. All he felt was the niggling prickle in his gut that this was all about to get out of hand.

Ensuring Retirees that had blocked memories retained no memories of run-ins with the GP was standard procedure – he had to wipe last night from her mind. He had to return her to her normal life before too much time passed and it would be impossible to reassimilate her back into the real world of Earth. But that didn't mean he had to feel comfortable about this.

Line gave a belly-shaking sigh and pushed himself back into his chair. Why did his job have to be so hard?

# Chapter 7

At approximately 4 p.m. standard galactic time Doctor Salvador Riverside was murdered. Doctor Riverside was head of the Galactic Secret Service. It was his responsibility to ensure all the secrets of the GU remained secret. His more notable portfolios included the unit that tracked down and dealt with Destroyer technology, and the task force set in place to shield and protect the Ultimates.

But none of that mattered when, at 4 p.m., a guided pulse-missile managed to blast through the shielding protecting his sky-view apartment in downtown Ter. Doctor Salvador Riverside didn't have a chance.

For the GPs and the GU, the murder of Doctor Riverside couldn't have come at a worse time. It coincided with the rollback of the Identity Laws. Merely hours before President Huli was set to take the stage at the Galactic Parliaments and inform the Milky Way of the revolutionary new changes, the head of the GSS was killed.

Not only had Doctor Riverside's murderers been able to send an ordinary missile through the streets of the most protected planet in the galaxy, but they had somehow managed to circumvent the very sophisticated shielding that was in place around all official residences.

Precisely how it was done, why, and by whom, were now the object of one of the largest investigations in GP history. The Commissioner of the Galactic Police had managed to convince the President and the Parliament to keep the murder of Doctor Riverside off official channels and the galactic news for now. Her logic had been that with the rollback of the Identity Laws, the admission that such a high-level official had been killed so easily would cause wide scale panic. Panic, which would, in turn, give way to impossible conspiracy theories about the Destroyers directly intervening in GU affairs.

Plus, the longer they managed to keep this quiet, the more time it gave the GP a head start.

The Commissioner was now left with a tricky problem. The GP were expecting quite a backlash from changing the Identity Laws, and it had been on her suggestion that galactic forces on any planet with Retirees be beefed up. But now she had to re-divert GP forces back to Planet Ter to engage in one of the largest investigations in GU history. All the official police channels were now being swamped by traffic relating to the assassination of Doctor Riverside, which was, unfortunately, coinciding with the time when the GP had expected a rush of calls relating to the new Identity Laws from random GP forces scattered throughout the galaxy. But the channels were jammed, and nothing was getting through.

The Commissioner had been in meetings all morning, and the Parliament was going apoplectic. No one really knew what was going on. The scared, slumped alien senators had been far too worried about how terrorists managed to send an ordinary missile through the most protected streets in the galaxy, to look beyond their own protection. Few of the pompous politicians had the foresight to ask the most important question: regardless of who had done this, what were they planning next?

That was the question rocketing around the Commissioner's brain, rattling all her neurons, and giving her one hell of a headache. The GP had assured her that for the most part, they had managed to keep the changes to the Identity Laws secret, and very few people had known or suspected a thing. Well, that was obviously an overstatement. Someone, somewhere, with the resources and will to murder a top GU official, must have known something. This wasn't a coincidence.

The universe was filled with scum. Take it from the Commissioner of the Galactic Police: there wasn't a corner of this stinking space-time that couldn't throw up filth. The inclination toward crime and the harm to one's fellow beings was repeated throughout every galaxy and every point in history. So looking for a criminal or terrorist organization capable and willing to perform such an outrageous act was like looking for a piece of hay in a haystack. Every vicious goon would have loved to get their hands on Doctor Riverside. But not every goon would be capable of circumventing the security on this planet.

All of this was a recipe for a permanent headache. The Commissioner couldn't see this resolving for some time yet. Even if they miraculously managed to capture the criminals responsible for the assassination, they would then have to ascertain how the deed was done and how the GP had not been able to prevent it. And then there would be the damage all this unscheduled radio chatter would have on the new identity system. She could just imagine, between the throbbing pains in her head, some lowly GP commander on some backwater planet trying to call in the identity of some Retiree and failing.

The Commissioner pulled herself up from her chair, grabbed her shawl tightly in one hand, and walked over to the huge glass wall that allowed her a view of the streets below. Aliens of all shapes and sizes were walking around down there continuing whatever business they may have in the galaxy's capital. All, fortunately, were blissfully unaware of the problems she dealt with. Problems she hoped to keep from them for some time yet.

...

Callie Hope pulled her cardigan around her. She tugged at the smooth beige fabric so tightly it ate into the flesh around her middle. She wasn't even cold. There was barely a breeze in the air. But that wasn't the point.

She'd finished the pancakes Sarah had made, hardly noticing the taste as she swallowed them down. Then she'd walked up to her room and dressed for a day full of lectures. She'd almost forgotten her essay on the table and had run back into the house to grab it. As she'd walked to uni along the familiar laneway lined with trees and charming old-style lamps painted in bright fire-truck red, she'd read through her work. She still couldn't remember a word of it. But Sarah was right, it was good.

But....

She kept swallowing quite nervously as she read on. She was afraid she'd hauled it off the net in a flagrant act of plagiarism and then completely forgotten about it. Had she been that tired last night? And what kind of girl nicks a whole essay only to forget about it hours later? If she could do such a thing, think of all the other terrible crimes she could commit and conveniently forget the next morning....

Callie kept clutching her cardigan. By the end of her walk to uni, the fabric would be so stretched she would have ruined it for good. But there was no helping it; Callie felt like she was some kind of secret government experiment: walking around with absolutely no memories of her night, but with evidence of something she'd purportedly written in her hand. Well, she was either a government experiment, or she was going insane. Neither were appealing, but at least if she were a government experiment, she could blame it on someone else. It would be a very boring government experiment, though. Perhaps they were trying her out on the little mundane exercises before they set her to killing world leaders.

In between wondering if she was the property of some secret organization, or merely a touch psychotic, Callie had to think very hard about whether she wanted to hand this essay in. Not handing such a brilliant essay in seemed like a bit of a crime, but perhaps less of a crime than handing in something she may have plagiarized. And her lecturer would hardly be very sympathetic if she excused her cheating by saying she honestly couldn't remember if she'd written it or not, but it seemed a crying shame not to hand it in. No, the more she thought about it, the clearer the only viable option became. She couldn't hand it in.

But now she had come to that decision, it left all her brainpower free to worry about the other problem. How do you even find out if you're a secret government experiment? Is there a hotline you can call, or a support group you can go to so you can discuss your symptoms? She could probably find some geek or nerd in the computer labs who could give her a hand. She'd tell them she'd woken up this morning with the haze of a strange dream, then gone downstairs to find her flatmate who never cooks flipping pancakes, and then had found an essay she couldn't remember writing a word of. The geek would um and ah for a bit and then tell Callie she'd been kidnapped by aliens who had wiped her mind after conducting strange experiments on her containing lots of green goo. Callie would take a seat for a moment, overcome and quite out of breath. But then she would get up and get on with her life, maybe seek out an internet forum where she could discuss her experiences with other poor abductees.

It was nice to have a plan. But Callie still couldn't let go of her cardigan.

...

Oatmeal honestly couldn't think of a better way of spending his time. He was on his slightly threadbare but still quite comfortable sofa, watching reruns. After his very active night, it was nice to relax on the couch with a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich in his hand. Jelly always did make a very good toasted sandwich. The kid was a technological and mathematical genius, and a pretty good cook too.

But there was one slight niggling problem. Oatmeal couldn't pay attention to the TV. And it wasn't that Jelly was making annoying noises as he read through the daily galactic papers; Jelly always made weird noises. No, there was something on Oatmeal's mind. He was having trouble putting last night behind him. He was having trouble forgetting one Callie Hope.

Oatmeal sighed and dropped his half-eaten sandwich back on his chipped, china plate. He couldn't put aside the feeling something darn right strange was going on. The moment he'd let that girl out of his sight, he'd let something profitable slip through his fingers. There was no denying her case was strange. And you don't get to be a bounty hunter, a currently breathing bounty hunter that is, without knowing a thing or two about the peculiar. And that Callie Hope practically reeked of the bizarre. In a universe as strange as this one, the bizarre was often obscenely profitable.

Oatmeal wanted to grab a leather vest, hop on his motorbike, and go find the kid again. This, of course, would wind up with him being shot by the GP – so he wasn't going to move from his couch just yet. Instead, he shifted his half-eaten sandwich around his plate, tilted his head to the side till it rested comfortably on a cushion, and continued to watch television.

...

This was enormous news, Jelly realized as he leaned back in his chair. He put two hands up and cupped the back of his neck. Wow, seriously wow.

He sucked in a breath and continued to read, but the breath whistled through his throat sounding more like a wheeze than a respectable intake of air. He couldn't quite help it; he was just so excited!

This news was just so big. First, they had the changes of the Identity Laws yesterday. Changes he'd not even known were coming. Now the airwaves were absolutely packed with rumors that the head of the GSS had been assassinated. Not on some crackpot planet with no security whatsoever, but on the galactic homeworld itself. It was the first time a GU official had been assassinated in years and years, and the first time the assassination had taken place on Ter itself.

Jelly put both hands up to his cheeks and rubbed. The muscles were starting to get tired; he was holding his face in such a rigid, shocked position, it was starting to hurt.

Conspiracy theories were bouncing around the Milky Way, with every commentator this side of the galactic rim wanting to get in on the action. First on everyone's list was some devilish act by the Destroyers. What if the Milky Way's greatest enemy had somehow been resurrected?

No one had seen a Destroyer in over 10,000 years, as they'd been destroyed in the final war with the Old Ones. All the galaxy had to remind themselves of the most fiendish enemy in history was the technology they had left behind: evil, hate-infused devices that still cropped up on random planets from time-to-time and wreaked havoc before the GU could demolish them. But that wasn't the point, whenever something huge, unexplainable, and shocking happened, some idiot always suggested the Destroyers had woken up and were trying to finish their mission.

Jelly didn't believe a word of it. If the Old Ones were so amazingly technologically advanced that they could create weapons as outstanding as the Ultimates, then they could probably give the Destroyers a run for their money. That wasn't to say Jelly didn't believe Destroyer technology still existed in the Milky Way. The technology of the Old Ones was still in use, so it was not such a stretch of the mind to believe Destroyer Tech would still be viable as well.

No, Jelly was more inclined to believe that whatever terrible things occurred in the Milky Way, it was more likely to be the fault of homegrown criminals, rather than the shadow of some past enemy. Jelly had met enough Outliers and cRIMS in his time to know they were capable of anything. It was his opinion the assassination of the head of the GSS was more likely something to do with some galactic goon trying to make a buck, than someone trying to destroy the galaxy.

But seriously, what with the rollback of the Identity Laws, the assassination of Doctor Riverside couldn't have come at a more interesting time.

Jelly settled into his chair, like a cat kneading a cushion. What with Oatmeal officially banned from working until the GP decided what to do with him, Jelly didn't really have anything else to do.

...

Callie went to her classes and stowed her essay deep in her bag so it didn't jump out and get her nicked for academic misconduct. She wasn't quite sure it was a good idea to be in today but hadn't yet convinced herself she was sufficiently insane to warrant going home.

So she was in sociology class, staring out the window. She had absolutely no idea what the teacher was talking about, and not one bit of her cared. Plus, it was kind of warm in here. Maybe the heaters were turned up really high, or maybe it was just the strong sun filtering in through the windows, but Callie was starting to feel a little drowsy. Her eyes kept blinking closed, and each time it was harder and harder to open them again.

The voice of the lecturer turned into this low mumbling drawl, hardly more noticeable than the subtle hum of an insect's wings.

Callie repositioned herself on her chair, until her shoulders were supported by the wall next to her, and rested her head against the pleasantly warm glass of the window. She closed her eyes for a moment. No one would notice, she reasoned, no one at all....

"Leave." At the edge of consciousness, the word formed in Callie's mind. "Leave."

Leave? She didn't want to leave; she was in class, she was supposed to be here.

"Leave, leave now." The words kept forming in her mind so perfect and clear.

No, she said to herself quite firmly; she didn't want to leave. Now if that voice would just stop talking to her, she could get some sleep.

"You must leave now. You cannot stay on this planet any longer." The voice was growing more insistent, more like an order and less like a request.

The planet? So not just the classroom then?

"You must leave this planet now. Time is running out. They are coming. You must find Oatmeal. You must go with him. You must do this now."

Oatmeal? Her mind was telling her she needed to go and have a bowl of oatmeal? Now, in the middle of sociology class, was her mind insane? If she had such a strong desire for oatmeal, surely it could wait until she got home. She didn't even like oatmeal....

"You have to leave, Callie – you have to leave now. Find Oatmeal, find him now, find him before it's too late." The voice was so insistent now, that it filled her head like a big fat balloon, pressing hard against her temples.

"Perhaps, Callie," a voice cut through her fugue, sharp and insistent, "if you were paying more attention to the class," her lecturer's voice was growing angrier with every syllable, "you wouldn't feel the need to take a nap. Or am I boring you?"

Callie pulled herself away from the window, away from the edge of sleep, with such a start, she actually yelped with fright.

The other students in the lecture theater began to laugh. The kind of mumbled, sniggering laugh students give when they realize someone else is getting in trouble.

Callie looked around, confused, her cheeks flushing so warmly she felt the need to dump her head in a bucket of ice cold water. The lecturer was looking at her with such narrowed and annoyed eyes, it was a miracle he hadn't marched right up to Callie and hit her over the head with one of her own textbooks.

She swallowed delicately and tried a very nervous, tight-lipped smile. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I stayed up all last night doing an essay...."

This only turned the lecturer's glare from annoyed to almost rabid. "As it wasn't an essay for this class, it does not bear on your conduct in my lecture hall. Now, if you'll please find some way to keep yourself awake, I will go on with the lecture."

Callie tried to recede as far into her plastic chair as the flimsy material would allow. It seemed that every class she went to these days would always end in her being terribly embarrassed. She tried to slip further into her cardigan, while simultaneously appearing very studious indeed.

For the rest of the lecture, she tried to take notes, like any other diligent student. But there was one small problem. One small, and very worrying problem. Every time she went to write, she was only capable of writing one thing.

Leave. Find Oatmeal. Leave. Find Oatmeal. Leave. Find Oatmeal.

Over, and over again. She couldn't write anything else.

By the end of the lecture, Callie had absolutely no notes to show for herself. All she had was the metallic taste of fear in her mouth and a queasy, unsettled stomach. If she had gone into her lecture thinking there was a remote possibility she was indeed insane, Callie left it with the certainty something was very wrong with her. From her head to her toes, to the empty ringing in her mind were a voice had once been, Callie felt like she was losing it.

There was only one option. She would have to go home and take a nap.

But walking home wasn't as easy as Callie had once held it to be. She had to think very, very hard about each step she took. It was as if someone were remotely controlling her muscles, directing her in the opposite direction to which she wanted to go.

So when she found herself on an unfamiliar street, in an unfamiliar section of town, Callie wasn't really surprised. Scared and uncomfortable, yes, but not surprised.

# Chapter 8

It took a certain kind of clientele to fill up the bar on a Tuesday night this far out in the galactic rim. A boisterous, loud, frightful clientele, who thought nothing of rubbing shoulders with vicious, backstabbing, dreadful alien criminals armed to the teeth with the most horrible weapons available. But even criminals need a night out sometimes. Everyone needs a place to rest and relax, share a beer with a mate, and discuss what hilarious illegal escapades they'd gotten up to through the week.

Barney's Comet Bar was the only watering hole for light years along a mostly deserted section of galactic-rim space. On the face of it, this area would be the last place you'd want to build a bar. It was a galactic dump for space trash. The whole place was littered with the carcasses of old ships. With metal, spent fuel cells, broken wings, and engine nacelles floating silently past.

No one ever came out here, or rather, no one should have bothered. But there are those who find a junkyard on the edge of habitable space the greatest treasure trove imaginable. This section of space, known simply as Junk, was a favorite haunt for criminals, merchants looking to fix their ship without having to pay for costly GP-approved repairs, and just your general space scum with nothing better to do than sip bad alcohol at the edge of the Milky Way.

Tonight, the place was buzzing, though. Every two-bit alien with a plasma rifle and a subscription to the galaxy news was offering their opinion on the change of ID laws to any fool dumb enough to listen.

"You hear what the Outliers are saying? The word in the stars is that they're planning something big to celebrate the GP's new laws, something real big."

"You hear about the rumor, the one about the head of the GSS being assassinated? I heard it was Black Hole Terrorists, something to do with this planet they found, right out on the rim, that was just full of Destroyer Tech. Apparently, they don't want to give it up to the police, so they created a distraction big enough to ensure they had the time to strip the planet of its goods and hide the Destroyer Tech somewhere those police idiots can't get to it."

"Yeah? I heard it was even bigger than that. You been hearing all those strange reports coming from No Man's Land? The ones saying there's this strange shadow off to the side of the galaxy, and no one knows what it is? It's the Destroyers, they are back."

"After all this time?"

"Who else would have the technology to kill a GU official in their own home right on the doorstep of the Galactic Parliament itself? Yeah, it's the Destroyers."

The barman leaned back until one of his gelatinous tentacles rested against the cooling rack behind him. He always liked it when the nights were busy. Not just in terms of money, though he certainly was raking it in tonight. No, things always got colorful when the thugs and criminals started bandying around their theories. And what, with the significance of both the change to the ID laws and the assassination of the head of the GSS, the barman was assured he would be hearing some wild theories tonight.

He cast several eyes over the packed room: over the colorful costumes, armor, and skin-tone of the various deadbeats that had chosen to walk into Barney's Comet Bar tonight. There was quite a range tonight, such a range that Barney the Barman was having trouble recognizing even half of them. There were several especially mean, vicious-looking types Barney was glad he didn't know. While Barney had a policy of automatic acceptance – happy to receive anyone willing to pay for their drink – he drew the line at getting truly psychotic terrorists drunk.

There were a group of humanoid-looking creatures at the end of the bar perched on stools and leaning in together discussing something with harsh whispers. One of the guys was a real tree trunk of a man and hardly ever blinked. And even though Barney himself wasn't a human, he knew enough of their physiology to understand not blinking wasn't a good sign. If that wasn't bad enough, one of the other men kept patting the butt of his rifle as he spoke in very shuddering, breathy sentences.

Barney would have to keep an eye on them, he reasoned. Before too long, they would probably kill someone – and that was never good for business. So Barney ensured for the rest of the night one of his tentacles was never too far away from his plasma phase rifle.

...

"Look, I'm telling you, it'll work; it has to," Frankie leaned in close, taking another sharp breath. "They won't let us down, and you know who we're dealing with here, right? They won't let us down."

"But don't you think it's a bit risky? Don't you think we'll get found out? Don't you think those GP pracks will be on their way to shoot the hell out of us right now?" Bobby wiped his eyes.

Frankie gave a very harsh laugh. His throat was so dry and cracked, it sounded like a rasp notching metal. "You think it'll matter? You think they actually have the brainpower to figure out what we're really up to? Gimme a break – they have no idea."

Bobby rubbed his eyes again. "But what about, you know, the Ultimates? What if they send one after us?"

"The Ultimates? Oh, we won't have to worry about them, not after long. Steve's got a plan for them, just like he had a plan for Doctor Riverside. And we all know how that worked out."

Bobby grinned, a toothy, wide-mouthed grin, because it seemed the right thing to do. Frankie was right, after all. With the kind of backup they had, how could this go wrong?

...

According to the news reports, there was a strange shadow on the edge of the Milky Way. The Galactic Academy of Science was calling it nothing more than a simple electromagnetic disturbance causing routine interference with their scanners. Their explanation seemed believable enough, which was precisely why the rest of the galaxy didn't trust a word of it. News of the shadow itself wasn't widespread, considering other recent developments. The news agencies weren't picking it up, but the people that had come across the story in passing were not comforted by the Science Academy's explanation. In fact, for the kinds of people that did pay enough attention to the millions of news releases that circulated the galaxy every 24 hours, the news of a strange shadow on the edge of space was just another reason to go home, lock the doors, and hide in bed. These days every other news story spoke of some strange and unpredicted phenomenon, and there is only so much worry your average alien can take.

So when Oatmeal bothered to tune in to what Jelly was trying to tell him, it took a great deal of control not to appear interested. In fact, the kind of slump Oatmeal was assuming to keep up his apathetic play was starting to hurt his back. A strange shadow on the edge of space, a political assassination, and a massive change in the way the GU ran their Identity Laws – all at the same time – was a little worrying.

"They are saying it is some kind of Outlier plot. They reckon they've managed to get their hands on a whole planet full of Destroyer Tech." Jelly waved his hands around so fast, they appeared like little white streaks of light. "Really, sir, this is just so weird."

"Aha," Oatmeal crossed his arms and cracked his back.

"You don't think that girl you were tracking last night... you don't think she has something to do with this, do you?"

Oatmeal frowned suddenly. "Why would you say that?" Oatmeal didn't want to give away the fact he'd been thinking just that all day long.

Jelly shrugged his shoulders, resting his hands at his side. "I don't know, I guess it's the timing, that's all. Just figure because the cRIMS went for her, right on the dot of the identity changes, that's a neat coincidence."

Oatmeal didn't want to nod. Though he agreed with the kid, he still bared his teeth and offered a dismissive grin. "Right. So what are you suggesting we do?"

Jelly looked momentarily surprised as if he were confused by the fact Oatmeal was suggesting they do anything at all. After all, Oatmeal wasn't one to be proactive where there was no clear monetary gain to be had. "Well, I guess there is nothing we can do. Like you said: the GP wiped her memories and returned her home. They mustn't think she's much of a target if they did that. I mean, they would have checked her ID and all. So if they returned her home, then she must be an ordinary Retiree."

"Right. So why did you say she could be important then? What was all that stuff about coincidence if you didn't actually think she was a proper target?"

Jelly shrugged in the kind of matter-of-fact way only he could manage. His shoulders tucked up underneath his ears, and he gave a wide-faced, fat-cheeked grin. "The GP are idiots."

Oatmeal nodded. "Yes, they are."

...

Doctor Tapper looked up at Zero and sighed. For almost 24 hours now they had been reading a strange level of activity in her synapses. He had never seen readings like these before. It was almost as if she were about to wake herself up – the activity was just so intense.

A new barrage of beeps, clicks, and whirrs emanated from the machines hooked up to the super weapon. The readings were not yet at the level where he would have to alert anyone. But they were getting close.

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets so quickly the fabric creaked ominously. He would take his pockets off if he wasn't more careful. But then again, his pockets were the least of his worries.

The Doctor settled in to run some more tests. He wasn't sure what the tests would tell him that he didn't already know. But at least it would be something to do, and right now, he needed a distraction.

...

Callie was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She had chunks missing in her memory, she was hearing voices, and apparently, she could no longer control her own limbs. What next? Would she strip naked and dance down the street singing sea shanties?

But as Callie swallowed very carefully, she realized what the next step to going insane was. She could swear there was someone following her. An ominous sensation climbed the back of her neck: a prickly tingling that marched over her skin and tickled down her back.

It didn't help that she didn't know where she was. Her legs had somehow taken her to a district of town she had never before seen. And it was very strange indeed: the people were odd, and not in a pleasant multicultural-melting-pot kind of way. In a creepy, scary kind of way. Callie kept looking over her shoulder, tracking whoever she passed to ensure they didn't turn around and come at her with a baseball bat.

She may never have had cause for paranoia in the past, but Callie was finding she was awfully good at it. She, for instance, could swear the two giant men sitting across the street at a cafe were periodically turning around to look at her. And then there was the guy up in the window to her left. As she walked along the street, the guy would occasionally point some kind of device at her, then turn away from the window when he caught her looking his way. Now if that wasn't cause for paranoia, Callie didn't know what was.

She wanted to crawl into some alley somewhere and pull her cardigan over her head. This was all just so insane. But she couldn't make her legs obey. They had a mind of their own, and that mind was in full control. All that Callie could do now was sit back and have a nervous breakdown while walking.

...

Commander Line kept his face as deadpan as possible. "What do you mean the Retiree just walked past? I thought she was supposed to be at university? What on Earth is she doing in this part of town?"

The guy on the other end of the com line took a moment to breathe. "Look, I don't know, sir. All I know is that Periwinkle and Stanley just saw her walking along the goddamn sidewalk right outside that shop that sells alien plants."

Commander Line shook his head and gave himself a moment to think.

"Should we pick her up, sir?"

"Just see where she goes first. We still have her bio scan, right? So we'll know where she is even if she manages to get out of eyeshot. So for now, just drop back and ensure she doesn't get in trouble."

"Aye, sir." There was a click as the signal terminated.

This all left Commander Line with an even bigger headache than before. So the Retiree, who apparently didn't have any memories, was now walking around the galactic side of town. And Line still couldn't get through to the GP to confirm her identity. But with every passing moment, he started to suspect he now had a problem on his hands. Something in his gut told him he should not allow this Retiree to drop off the scanners. And something in his brain told him if the kid, who apparently couldn't remember her identity, knew where the galactic side of town was, then she wasn't as innocent as she seemed.

He was leaning more and more toward the belief this little Retiree was the Retired soul of some galactic criminal mastermind who had chosen the body of a seemingly sweet and innocent young woman so that no one would suspect whose mind was really inside. But he wasn't about to let her get away with that. He would give her a little bit of slack for now, just to see where she would go, then he would swoop in and catch her.

...

"What do you mean we are out of sugary snacks? I thought I told you to get some of those from the store?!" Oatmeal stopped just short of overturning a chair in his rage, just short.

Jelly put his hands up in peace. "You ate them all when you got in last night. If you want more, you'll just have to go back to the shops."

Oatmeal looked at Jelly with wild, crazy eyes. "Well, I guess I just will, then."

It didn't take long for Oatmeal to grab a jacket and walk to his favorite store. And the walk had been quite a pleasant one; the sun was shining and a brisk breeze was in the air. Oatmeal lived on the edge of the galactic side of town. He had managed to pick up a very cheap apartment with a fantastic view of the dirtiest, creepiest, most untrustworthy alley Oatmeal had ever seen. Apparently, the last occupants had moved out due to regular home invasions. But after the full treatment Oatmeal had given the first criminal stupid enough to break down his front door, the word had gone around, and no one else had bothered. In fact, word of Oatmeal had successfully spread throughout the galactic side of town, and Oatmeal would like to think most of the Earth as well. People always gave him funny looks when he was walking down the street, after all.

In fact, the woman in front of him, the one trying to unsuccessfully hide behind a telephone poll, was giving Oatmeal the strangest of looks. He was readying himself to yell "boo" when he walked past. But that isn't quite what he yelled. "What the hell are you doing here?!"

Callie Hope jumped and shuffled quickly back, as if she expected him to come out swinging. She had such a warm tinge to her cheeks, it seemed as though he had startled the life right out of her. "Do I know you?" Her voice was so quiet he had to lean in to catch it, and this made her only more startled.

He appraised her, using all the bounty hunter skills he had at his disposal. Her wide bug-like eyes were shifting about like a leaf caught in an upstream. Her cheeks were full but stiff and had a ruddy awkward glow about them. She was clutching at her cardigan with one hand, her knuckles so white it seemed as though she'd been doing that all day long. It didn't take a genius, and no it didn't take a bounty hunter either, to realize the kid was afraid.

"You all right, kid? You don't remember me, do you?" After all, the GP had wiped her memories. But if they had, what was she doing here? What the prack was she doing on the galactic side of town, only meters away from an underground bar full of criminals, deadbeats, and goons?

He would have to let her answer that question. So he crossed his arms, not too abruptly, and waited.

She repositioned her weight, until she settled into a lean away from him, like a sapling retreating from a continuous wind. "So, I do know you then?" Her voice was still a little whisper. "Are you... are you...?"

"Am I what, honey?"

She gave the kind of slow swallow Jelly would be proud of. "Are you Oatmeal?"

Now Oatmeal leaned away from her. "Yeah, but how do you know that?"

A sudden excitement came over her. "So you really are Oatmeal then? You can get me off this planet?"

"I can get you off this planet? What are you talking about, Callie?"

She opened her eyes further. "You know my name. You must be the person the voice is talking about then."

If Oatmeal weren't such a hardened bounty hunter, he would walk the prack away from a comment like that. Especially given the almost desperate way she delivered the line. "Voices? What voices are you talking about, Callie?"

A warmer red took Callie's cheeks, and it was clear even she was uncomfortable with what she was saying. This gave Oatmeal a little kick of relief. Maybe she wasn't totally insane after all.

"I know this is going to sound strange. And I'm pretty sure I'm going insane, so if you feel the need to walk away, just do it. But," she took an enormous breath, "a voice in my head told me to come find you." She flinched.

"Okay," he said slowly.

Whatever was holding her together suddenly broke. The hand that was still clutching so tightly onto her cardigan gave a spasmodic twitch. "Oh, my god, I'm so sorry, just ignore me, please just ignore me." She took several steps away from him waving her hands as if to dismiss all she had said before.

Now, Oatmeal may have found Callie quite exquisitely annoying last night, but that didn't mean he was about to leave the kid in such a broken-down, frazzled state in the middle of the street. "Okay, what do you say I take you to someone who might be able to help?" He tried to keep his voice as calm, even, and professional as possible; he was just asking a girl who apparently didn't know him to walk away with him.

She hesitated, probably recognizing how strange and potentially dangerous the situation was. But then, whatever was torturing the kid made her nod her little head up and down. "You are Oatmeal, I guess."

"I am that." Oatmeal nodded and took her by the hand and led her away.

Callie squeezed Oatmeal's hand so tightly all the way back to his apartment, he had to pump his hand several times before the blood could return when she finally let go.

"I should not be doing this," she mumbled as he went to open his front door. "What the hell am I thinking? I have just followed some guy home to his apartment. What am I thinking?"

Her voice was very quiet and practically indistinguishable, but Oatmeal had excellent hearing and heard it all. The kid must be in quite some state to have walked all the way back home with a guy she couldn't remember before she realized it wasn't a good idea. Just lucky for her that Oatmeal was an honorable bounty hunter.

Oatmeal opened the door.

...

Was she insane?! What on Earth was she doing here? Not only had she walked to a strange section of town she'd never been to before, but now she'd followed a guy she didn't know back to his apartment based solely on the premise he would introduce her to someone that could help.

If Callie was the fainting type, this would be precisely the time to employ that skill. What a truly naïve and foolish thing to do. Never mind the fact that when Oatmeal had taken her hand, the voice in Callie's head had stopped shouting at her to get off the planet. And never mind the fact she didn't seem to have had any other choice than to follow him; her limbs going into autopilot and blocking out any control she wielded over them. Never mind any of that at all, because right now it wasn't important. Right now, the only thing that was important was the fact she was standing outside the door of a man she didn't know, waiting to go into his apartment.

And Callie was always such a sensible girl. The thought of going home with a man she'd just met was so amazingly out of character, it would have been funny if it had not been happening at that very moment.

The guy, Oatmeal – and what kind of a name was that, really? – appeared to pick up on what she was thinking and gave her an apologetic smile before opening his door. "I guess you're having second thoughts, but I can assure you, I ain't no murderer."

If that statement was supposed to put her at ease, this guy was an idiot. But before Callie could turn on her heel and run down the stairs screaming, the guy grinned again. "Look," he pushed the door open, "before you go screaming down the stairs, think of one thing. You knew my name, and you came to me."

Callie stopped and thought. There was something in that. There was something about this whole situation. There was something in waking up in the morning, with such strange dreams running through her head, to a flatmate whose personality had completely changed, and to an essay she couldn't remember writing, and to a voice in her head that she could swear had never been there before. There was something in all of this. It was a big red flashing question mark.

Callie followed him in.

It was unlike any other apartment she had ever seen before. And it wasn't just the fact it belonged to boys – she had seen enough share houses not to be surprised by the filth of men. No, it was the plethora of strange, unrecognizable machines that filled every nook and cranny. Callie may not have been up-to-date with the latest technological trends, but she simply couldn't recognize any of these devices. They looked straight off a sci-fi, with blue and green flashing lights and sleek, smooth metal finishes. They were all sorts of shapes too, and sizes, with little attachments that whirred, zinged, and beeped. It was exactly like being on a TV show.

Then this kid popped out suddenly from around the kitchen door, and what with one thing and another, Callie screamed and jumped back, falling into Oatmeal behind her.

"It's just Jelly." Oatmeal grabbed her by the shoulders and stood her up and away from him.

The kid, with a very wide, happy, pudgy face that reminded her of a Buddha statue, gave an awkward but very friendly grin. "Sorry to startle you, ma'am."

Callie gave a nervous grin in return. She wasn't quite up to saying that it didn't matter, because she was still too confused by what she saw around her.

Oatmeal pushed past her and walked heavily toward the couch before stopping several steps away from it and falling backward – the cushions taking his weight with a dull thud.

"This isn't the Retiree, is it?" Jelly asked in a quick and excited tone. "The one you lost to the GP? I thought they'd wiped her memories?"

Callie opened her eyes until she could open them no further. But before she could ask what the hell the kid was talking about, Oatmeal turned to him with an angry sigh. "Sheesh, would you shut up, Jelly? She doesn't exactly have her memories back yet."

Jelly took a step back from her and winced, as if he'd done something really quite rude. "Oops, sorry, ma'am."

Despite her ludicrous situation, Callie found herself thinking this boy was really quite polite. Quite unlike the Oatmeal character who was now sitting on the couch and ignoring them both.

A moment of silence descended on the group, and Callie was forced to clear her throat.

Oatmeal looked up at her, annoyed. "Don't look at me. I said I would take you to someone that could help, and here he is. So go ahead, Jelly, give her a hand." He reached for the remote.

Wow, Callie thought, this guy really is rude. The cheek, really, holding her hand all the way down the street, telling her it would be alright, and getting back to his apartment and turning on the TV. This guy would win the award for the worst hero in the world.

Jelly turned to her, the smile never shifting from his face. "Okay, I'm just going to take some readings. It will be over very quickly and won't hurt at all."

"Readings? What do you mean? Is there something wrong with me? And what did you mean before when you said I was a Retiree? And when you said I had my memories wiped, what on Earth did that mean?"

"Ahhh, well...."

"Look," Oatmeal didn't turn around from watching TV, "stop hassling the kid, lady. I will tell you once more, like I told you last night: You are the Retired mind of an alien. Your life on Earth is simply an extended holiday and one day you're going to wake up, and this will all be a dream."

Callie opened her mouth to say something pertinent, but all she managed were several choppy breaths.

"Okay, how about I give you a slightly more technical and involved explanation," Jelly offered as he directed her toward the kitchen with a little wave.

"How about I just wake up from this crazy dream?" But Callie followed Jelly nonetheless.

...

Commander Line really didn't want to be hearing this right now. "So you're telling me that we have lost her readings, we cannot pick her up anywhere on the scanners?"

The tech guy in front of him shuffled his feet but certainly didn't make eye contact. "We lost her when she went into Alamo Street. There is some kind of dampening field – it's been there for a while now. We just cannot get a signal inside."

"So, you're telling me we have known of a dampening field active on our territory for some time, blocking our sensors, and we haven't done anything about it? Why in the galaxy hadn't we fixed this before? I'm not sure if you've managed to put the two together yet, but if someone is deliberately blocking our sensors, then it's pretty clear they are doing something they don't want us to see." The Commander stretched out his hands over his desk. He may be angry, but he wasn't melodramatic enough to slam a fist down on the wood. Plus, this was far more intimidating. "So I'm going to ask you one more time: why wasn't this problem fixed before?"

The tech was really wincing now. Line would feel sorry for him if it weren't for the fact he was too busy feeling angry.

"I'm afraid, sir," the tech was mumbling, with his head directed at the floor, "that it wasn't considered a priority. We are pretty sure no important criminals live on the street."

"Really? Let me be the one to decide that. Anyhow that's not important right now. I want you to get me that girl. Go out and scour each goddamn house on that whole street if you have to, but I want you to find her and bring her back here."

"But sir," the tech guy said in a very brave voice, "isn't that against regulations? I thought you weren't allowed to pull a Retiree in, especially if they don't have their memories, without a warrant from head office?"

The Commander just nodded slowly. He didn't bite the guy's head off, because it was a reasonable question and because deep down the Commander was a reasonable man. "Let's call this instinct, and my gut instinct as a commander tells me I need to get that girl into custody before she does something or something is done to her. So get me that girl."

# Chapter 9

Galactic rim tourism was no longer a booming enterprise. When intrepid companies had first come to this barren part of space, they had rather hoped that given a little luck and a lot of hype, there would be a lot of money to be made by taking adventuresome tourists to the very edge of inhabitable space. It had, indeed, worked for several years, and a substantial amount of money had been invested into building the infrastructure needed to run such a business.

But then it went bust. After the initial hype and novelty had worn off, tourists began to turn away from this mysterious and lonely section of space that was once known as No Man's Land. The more religious aliens, whatever their bent on spirituality might be, often reported a sense of dread when entering the area for the first time, and that isn't a terribly good review for a fledgling enterprise.

There was just something about this area, the more sensitive of the tourists would proclaim. The tour guides would assure them what they were feeling was momentary space sickness, certainly nothing to do with the area itself. But once word got around, the damage was done. And then, as if that weren't enough, a series of strange and frightfully terrifying incidents occurred. There was a time just before the enterprise as a whole went bust that the GP was called in every other day to deal with some horrible new crime.

Now all that remained of the once-potentially-profitable-galactic-rim-tourist experience were a series of abandoned or nearly abandoned stations floating in the lonely darkness of space. The stations themselves, once the proprietors had left, were intended to simply drift as derelicts, until their hulls succumbed to the vacuum of space. It was too expensive to have them scrapped this far out. And who would inhabit them now? Once the rumors had spread through the galactic news, no matter how true or false they were, it seemed highly unlikely that anyone, no matter how desperate, would set foot on the stations again. They were haunted, after all.

But not everyone finds the prospect of a haunted, decrepit space station on the edge of the known galaxy to be that bothersome. Certain aliens, and humans included, run on the belief that there is a weapon to fight every type of war. At the center of this belief is the notion that everything, no matter how apparently powerful, has an Achilles heel. Ghosts may be incorporeal, but that didn't mean they were indestructible. Plus, one man's ghost is another man's friend. And as it turned out, one man's ghost could be the very best of friends.

So the abandoned space stations on the edge of inhabitable space were no longer abandoned. They were now the headquarters of a group quite infamous throughout the Milky Way. A group obviously with enough tenacity and daring to make their home in a place despised and feared by others. But the Outliers were not ordinary beings. They were a group, a unit of displaced beings from destroyed planets around the Milky Way. They were not a support group, though.

The GU had long ago considered the Outliers as a terrorist organization. It was their goal, so the GP claimed, to overthrow the GU government. Their motivation was the belief the GU had become a corrupt, facile organization, one that routinely used its military might only to protect its own interests and not that of its citizens. How could a government, they would say, allow the destruction of whole planets, the displacement of whole races, and the eradication of whole cultures?

So the Outliers saw themselves as saviors of the galaxy. A liberation front, a people's army, a movement for freedom. The rest of the galaxy, however, saw them as a band of dangerous criminals, for one reason more than any other: Outliers were known to use Destroyer Tech.

Regardless of whether people could find sympathy for the Outliers and their predicament, the notion they would use the most dangerous technology in the known galaxy to help their cause was a frightening one. But more frightening, and far less known, was the reason the Outliers were so at home this far out in the galaxy. The "ghosts" that had managed to force out the tourists, were not, in fact, your standard white, floaty apparitions common in Earth mythology. No, these ghosts could only be described as echoes. Echoes of a time long gone, or perhaps a time to come.

When the first Outlier had made his way to the twelve derelict space stations of the galactic rim, they had found something unique to their tastes. A rip in space, a small nick in the fabric of the universe and a message from a long-dead race. A race no other inhabitant of the Milky Way would ever listen to, let alone abide by.

That tiny, barely noticeable crack in the expanse of space was a crack in time. A fracture that traced all the way back to 10,000 years ago when the Destroyers had an outpost in that very same place....

...

Oatmeal listened with half an ear as Jelly ran Callie through her situation. The kid always did have a talent for making things seem a lot better than they were. Jelly could make a horrible swarm of killer alien flies seem really quite all right. So Oatmeal had learned to take Jelly's predictions with a very large grain of salt.

So it was little wonder that when Jelly had finished explaining to Callie what exactly a Retiree was, what had happened last night, and why she was suddenly hearing voices in her head, Callie's mood picked up wonderfully. Now she was sitting across the room from him, on a chair with chipped legs, her hands primly positioned on her lap, staring in wonder at her first galactic-furnished apartment.

"What's that?" Callie pointed out some other innocuous scrap of technology and Jelly launched into a full and confusing explanation. "Oh," she'd say, and then turn around to find the next curious thing.

Oatmeal wasn't known for his patience, and this was really starting to get annoying. "Look, do you mind? I'm trying to watch the TV."

"Oh, sorry, it's just I've never been in an alien apartment before. It's kind of exciting...." Callie bobbed her shoulders slightly as she smiled, somewhat like an enthusiastic collector touring through a museum.

Oatmeal waited a moment. "Is there any reason you're still here? I said I would take you to someone who could help. You now know what's going on, so why are you still in my house?"

Callie blinked very quickly and shifted her eyes around as if to check that what he had just said had not been some kind of joke. Perhaps she wasn't used to people being this direct with her. But she was sitting in his chair, in his apartment, and he had every right to be as direct as he wanted. "Well, I had kind of hoped, considering your job and all, that you would be able to help me more."

Oatmeal just looked at her with a deadpan expression and shrugged his shoulders. "Do I look like a charity worker? Lady, if you have a problem with your Retirement, go and see the GP, not a bounty hunter."

"But you helped me last night," she persisted, hands still clasped properly in her lap. "And Jelly said you've dealt with cases like mine before. He said you've shepherded Retirees back to the galactic homeworld, or something, in the past. And he said, considering my case, that is where I needed to go to. So I guess I'm waiting around until you finish watching MacGyver, so we can get into a spaceship and go." The more Callie sat in that little chair, with her hands so primly clasped, the more comfortable she seemed to grow. And the more comfortable she became, the more clearly annoying Oatmeal realized she was.

"Take you to the homeworld?!" Oatmeal made his voice deliberately sarcastic. "Now why would I do that? You, honey, are annoying. Why would I want to spend weeks cooped up in a cruiser with you?"

Her eyebrows disappeared under her fringe, and he couldn't tell whether she was more hurt or annoyed by his words. But then she shook her head sharply. "Oh, that's funny, I would have thought you could use the money. But my mistake, I'll just find some other bounty hunter."

"Sheesh, I almost fell for that. Honestly, I did. Honey, that was the play of the century. It really was." He turned back to his TV.

She gave a strange exasperated gasp. "Likewise, Oaty, you really just convinced me you aren't interested in my money one little bit."

"Don't call me Oaty, only Steve can call me that." He made a point of not taking his eyes off the television.

She made an equally strange, even more exasperated noise. "Is Steve your only friend?"

Jelly leaned his head around the kitchen door. "Steve is like his brother. They both survived the destruction of their home planet as kids. Steve is now the head of a galactic terrorist organization." Jelly's voice was very keen and matter-of-fact, as if he were simply discussing the latest new holographic movie.

Callie's eyes popped at the mention Oatmeal had a terrorist leader in his family. "Galactic terrorist? You aren't serious?"

"He isn't a terrorist, Jelly, how many times do I have to tell you? He is a freedom fighter, and there isn't any shame in that."

"Okay sir, all I'm saying is that the GU currently classifies Steve as a wanted galactic terrorist. But I understand; he's still your family."

"You have a terrorist in the family? You really are serious?! Oh my God, oh my God!"

"I would not be so quick to judge, kid. Who knows whose Retired mind you are? You could be a criminal mastermind, trying to evade detection from the police by Retiring on some backwater planet. I'm not going to be judged by you."

Callie crossed her arms, and the part of Oatmeal that wasn't annoyed enough to notice, recognized something familiar in it. He respected people that chose to cross their arms. There was a lot that could be communicated by simply crossing your arms in front of your chest. "And maybe I'm not, maybe I'm a goddamn Saint. Or maybe I'm some rich, fat alien blob, and I own half the galaxy. But the only way we are going to find out is if you agree to take me to the galactic homeworld."

She was persistent, he would give her that. But he was dogged too. "Look, kid, I doubt you could pay the rates I charge."

Callie took a moment to obviously look around the room, her eyes drifting over the broken furniture and various broken machines. "You sure about that?"

He gritted his teeth. "Quite sure."

"Well, I have news for you. I have a trust fund. And I'm allowed to dip into it whenever I'm in trouble. And I'm pretty sure this is trouble. So I can pay."

Trust fund? The kid had a trust fund? What with her wacky personality, and clearly unstable mind, Oatmeal had about been ready to cast Callie off as some weird, sad psycho who had Retired to get away from themselves. But not everybody has the foresight to set up a trust fund for their Retired self. And more importantly, not everybody has the money.

Not for the first time, Oatmeal looked up at Callie with fresh eyes. "Let's say I'm interested. What kind of a trust fund are we talking about here?"

Callie brushed a hand through her long black hair. "A substantial one."

Oatmeal shared a quick, happy look with Jelly. "Hey, maybe I was wrong about you, kid. Maybe you can afford the kind of fees I charge."

"And maybe I was wrong about you, but only time will tell on that one."

He smiled; at least she had some pluck. "There's only one problem: the GP will be after you."

"Oh, is that my problem? Or is that the problem of the bounty hunter I just hired to protect me?" She blinked rather prettily.

He kept the smile on his face. "Nicely played. Okay then, it's a deal. We will get off this planet, evade the GP, and take you to the galactic homeworld."

"And you will wait around until my identity has been successfully verified. I'm not paying you to just dump me in the street somewhere. You have to come right up with me to wherever it is I have to go and help me through whatever it is I have to do."

His smile twitched a little. This girl really was good when she got going - he would have to keep an eye on her. "Okay, that's the deal. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some illegal things to do."

She nodded.

# Chapter 10

The Commissioner had been staring at the computerized pad sunk into her desk for what felt like the best part of the day. The small and sophisticated technology may have been the best available in the universe, but it still brought a tightness to the edge of her temples after hours of staring at it.

It didn't look as if she would be able to stop anytime soon. In fact, the only indication was that this situation would continue. And this was shaping up to be the biggest job of her career.

She shifted once more in her chair, the smart fabric molded around her shape and made only the slightest of noises. She looked at the man before her, Senator Petronas, a wan smile tugging at the corner of her lips. They both knew what was at stake here. "So, how long have we known?"

Senator Petronas ran a very bony three-fingered hand over the top of his ridged head. "That's just the thing; we are only really starting to find out now."

The Commissioner shook her head, a little shot of bitterness curdling through her stomach. How could they just be finding out now? With all of the checks and balances, resources, and experience of the combined security and intelligence forces of the GU, how could they just be finding out about this now? "Are you telling me no one anywhere picked up any information, any inkling that Doctor Riverside was working for the Outliers, Petronas?" The Commissioner pulled herself forward in her chair. This time the fabric creaked with the suddenness of her movement. "How did this happen?"

Petronas, who headed the Senatorial Commission into GU Security, shrugged his bony shoulders, the fabric of his black-and-white tunic falling about him in folds. "If I had an answer to that, then presumably we would not be in this situation. Doctor Riverside's treachery went undetected. But now it has been brought to our attention, rest assured we are tracking his trail backward. Soon we will find out what information he passed on to the Outliers and for what purpose." Petronas reached out a bony finger and tapped the Commissioner's viewscreen. "These are the first clues. They are surveillance footage we picked up in a raid on an Outlier ship. It seems they were keeping it in case the need to blackmail Doctor Riverside arose."

The Commissioner ticked her head. The question of why Doctor Riverside, a celebrated and trusted member of the GU security family – and yes, the Commissioner did consider the security forces to be a family – had turned on them had been burning in her mind ever since she found out about his treachery. So now she sat forward in her chair, keener than she'd been before. "You said if the need to blackmail arose, so if they weren't already blackmailing him, why in the universe was he cooperating?"

Petronas leaned back in his chair, either to get away from the Commissioner's insistence, or because he knew what he was about to tell her wasn't going to be popular. "You aren't going to like this. Of the few things we managed to salvage from Doctor Riverside's apartment, one piece of technology survived unscathed."

A pang of fear sliced through the Commissioner's middle. "Unscathed?"

"It appears the Outliers had been supplying Doctor Riverside with Destroyer Tech."

The Commissioner leaned away, and she shook her head bitterly. "Destroyer Tech...."

"We have never come across this particular device before, and our analysis of the object was fairly basic before we had to have it destroyed. But it appears to have been some kind of narcotic, capable of keeping the user in a permanent state of euphoria. It also, apparently, destroyed the mind."

"So the Outliers got Doctor Riverside hooked on Destroyer Tech and presumably continued to supply him with whatever kept the device running. But tell me, Petronas, tell me that we know what Doctor Riverside traded for this device? What information did he leak?"

Doctor Riverside ran his bony hand over the ridge of his head again, wicking away several beads of sweat. "A list of names."

"A list of whose names?"

Petronas paused to cup his bony hands before him as if in prayer. "A list of high-profile GU assets currently in Retirement."

A horrible sinking feeling pushed through the Commissioner's stomach, as if she were free-falling through the atmosphere. "Whose names?" she repeated her question once more.

"We don't know."

The Commissioner nodded her head until her neck began to hurt. "Right, then I need two things from you: I need you to find me who was on that list, and I need you to find out everything you can about Doctor Riverside's contact in the Outliers. Get me his contact, Petronas. I want to know everything about the man that successfully managed to turn the head of the GSS into a traitor. I want to know his history. I want to know his associates. And I want to know this yesterday." She spoke with enough finality that Petronas simply nodded and left the room.

...

Commander Line flicked through the electronic pad an officer had just handed him. He scowled at the results that blinked back at him on the screen. "I thought I said I wanted Callie Hope in custody, and now you're telling me she doesn't even appear to be on the planet anymore." The Commander spoke his angry, sharp words at the room in general, and the room in general shrunk back from him. A couple of officers mumbled something about her having help, but the Commander just laughed. "I don't want to hear it. The only thing I want to hear is that we have her back on scanners and are sending a cruiser to intercept. Now, I'm sure you're all aware regulations prohibit me issuing a galactic-wide warrant for her arrest until I can successfully confirm her identity. And I'm also sure you're all aware that the wonderful new identity databases are still inaccessible. So I'm going to tell you what we are going to do: I will personally head a team to intercept and apprehend this Retiree, and then we will take her to the Identity Offices ourselves. Have I made myself clear? I want a cruiser ready to go ASAP."

A roomful of GU police, fired up by the angry words of their Commander, grunted in approval.

...

Callie couldn't believe she was actually on her first spaceship. She'd seen a handful of sci-fi movies and TV shows in the past, but none of them prepared her for this. It wasn't the sleek interior of the ship, or the incredibly complex whirling, flashing computer screens in front of the cockpit that Callie was finding so unbelievable. Those just looked like they were off the very expensive set of some high-budget movie. No, the thing that made Callie realize she was really sitting in the cockpit of an actual spaceship, was the smell. You would think something as mechanized and artificial as a spaceship would have no smell. But that was just the thing: she didn't know if it was because the air was recycled or because the walls and bulkheads were made of some shiny metal Callie had never seen before. But there was a smell in the air, and it smelt of metal shavings, hairspray, and dirty washing-up water.

Callie made another face as she spun in the chair Oatmeal had begrudgingly issued her. She spun lightly at first, her view shifting from the large screen at the front of the cockpit, and Oatmeal and Jelly seated before it, to the door behind them that led out to the rest of the ship. Mostly she watched the walls twirl around and around in her vision. They were painted with a white, light-reflecting paint with large black lines that ran about a meter above the ground that looked suspiciously like speed stripes.

It had not taken long for Jelly to hack into her trust fund account and transfer Oatmeal's 'Protection Fee' out. For a moment afterward, she'd been afraid, what with the look of satisfied greed on Oatmeal's face, that he would take her money and run. But he'd been true to his word; she was in a spaceship, after all.

The journey to the ship had been strange indeed and had taken the best part of an hour, once they'd prepared the things they needed. Scooting across town on the back of Oatmeal's motorbike, holding on for dear life despite Jelly's assurances she couldn't possibly fall off, had given her time to think. And she needed time to think; everything was just going so fast. A mixture of excitement, fear, and disbelief had formed a heavy knot in her stomach. But mostly excitement had won out. After all, she was riding very fast on a motorbike with what could only be described as a bad boy, heading for a spaceship and intergalactic travel.

For the whole trip across town, she could sense Oatmeal was glaring out at the world with icy, mean eyes. She would have hated to have been a driver facing him in oncoming traffic. It was quite clear her very presence was sufficient to annoy the hell out of him. But he was her employee now – he would just have to get used to it.

They had driven right out of the city until they'd reached a section of country Callie wasn't at all familiar with. Then Oatmeal had driven off the road, along a very bumpy dirt track that had made Callie's teeth chatter in her head. She hadn't known what to expect really, but had still hoped the spaceship would be in some cool, secret hangar bay underneath the city somewhere. But no, Oatmeal had drawn to a stop in the middle of an abandoned field that was shielded on all sides by thick woodland.

Jelly had pulled a very flat, small device from his pocket, and with a click a spaceship had materialized right in front of them. Callie had not taken the surprise too well, what with a spaceship the size of a large yacht suddenly appearing in the field meters from where she stood. With a soft yelp, she'd jumped back right into the unyielding chest of Oatmeal. Not for the first time, he'd put both hands on her shoulders and pushed her away with some snide comment about how terribly jumpy she was.

She was really completely overexcited by that point. Her nervous system had taken such a battering throughout the day that she'd began chatting uncontrollably and pumping her hands like a boxer readying to fight. But that had been several hours ago now, and her over excitement was now touched with boredom. So she twisted in her chair once more and watched her very first view of a spaceship flicker around her in a panorama of sleek metal and green flashing lights.

"If you twist in that chair one more time, I will throw you out an airlock. Do you have any idea how annoying it is?" Oatmeal typed something on the console before him then turned to her with a strict look of annoyance on his face.

She put out a foot to stop herself. "Well, I wouldn't have to find a way of entertaining myself if you would just give me something to do."

Oatmeal's eyes blazed. Callie was starting to realize they were a real window into his soul. You could tell very easily what he was thinking just by making contact with those two pinpricks of brown.

"Sorry, I wasn't aware you could fly a mark-two deep-space cruiser."

"I don't mean fly the ship," she said quickly before he could say anything sarcastic, "I just meant... that surely there's something else I can do other than stare at this wall. I mean, how long is this journey supposed to take anyway?"

"About a month."

"A month?" Her voice went very high. "A whole month?"

"Look, honey, we are traveling to the center of the galaxy. What were you expecting, a couple of hours?" He looked satisfied when she shrugged her shoulders in defeat. "How about you leave the space travel up to us and you get back to staring at that wall."

She bit her lip rather than be forced to call him a rude name. "I can't stare at the wall for a whole month; I'll go insane."

"Not my problem, is it? You paid me to help get your identity confirmed and to get you the prack off Earth. You didn't say anything about keeping you entertained."

"But you could have told me it would take a month before we left Earth," she spluttered back, "I would at least have taken a book or two. I mean, what exactly am I going to do for a month? Surely this thing has automatic pilot, surely you don't have to sit in that seat watching those instruments beep all the time. What are you going to do?"

She appeared to have hit a nerve, for Oatmeal drew his face into an angry frown. "There you go again, trying to fly the ship. You aren't a pilot, honey, so for the last time, just sit there and stare at the wall in silence."

She looked at him darkly. "Oh, for heaven's sake, stop being such a bully. Think of someone other than yourself for a moment. I've had an awfully big day. Not only have I found out I'm not who I always thought I was, but I also had to deal with a mysterious voice shouting in my head and controlling my limbs. You've just spent the day on the couch watching reruns. So have a care, Oatmeal, and cut me some slack." She crossed her arms tightly in front of her chest, daring him to utter another sanctimonious word.

He rose to the moment and crossed his own arms, staring back at her with equal ferocity. "Mysterious voices in your head and losing control of your arms – do you think you're special, princess? Do you think you're the only Retiree ever to have a wobbly time readjusting to the big wide world of the galaxy? Do you think we should drop what we're doing and rush over to comfort you at once? Maybe offer you a lie-down and a good cup of tea? Or do you think, maybe, you should just leave us to do what we have to do in peace, and you should get on with having your pathetic mental breakdown in the corner?"

She had never felt her eyes draw so wide at someone's insensitivity before. Her face was flushing with real heat too, and she could actually feel the anger in her gut like a tight twist of wet fabric. She had never slapped anyone before either, but she desperately wanted to leap out of her chair and lash out at Oatmeal's face with all her might.

"Ah, sir, do you think you should tone it down slightly? She has had a big day."

"Shut up, Jelly," Oatmeal's tone was vicious.

"Don't you speak to him like that! Just who do you think you are treating people so badly?"

"I'm the guy you hired to save you, in case you've forgotten already; the guy you came and found; the guy whose name you couldn't get out of your head."

"No, you aren't any of those things. You're a man who picks on children and young women who are in distress. And you also associate with known terrorists. You're horrible," Callie said that word with about as much resonance as she could muster, and her whole diaphragm shook with the effort.

"You sound like you're recording my biography. But you've missed out the bit where I'm quick to anger, I never forgive, and I'm generally just a nasty person."

"You are a nasty person," she stood up sharply, "and I don't even want to be in the same room as you."

She walked out, but not before Oatmeal suggested she keep walking right out the airlock.

# Chapter 11

Life in space wasn't what she'd hoped. The novelty of having the stars so clear and bright right outside the window waned after the first day or so. It wasn't that Callie was hard to please, quite the opposite in fact, as she found more amusement from the shower that blew pressurized steam than Oatmeal thought was healthy. She'd laughed like a widower stacking away the booze when the first rush of steam had shot out from the nozzle above her, causing Oatmeal to give her a very strange look when she'd finally made it out of the shower.

No, it wasn't that space wasn't an interesting place to be - it was just that Callie was a little lonely. And in between being introduced to new and wonderful, and often very random snippets of technology, Callie was just plain bored. And her bored mind tended to rest on the subject of what would happen next. She needed to talk about it, discuss what was happening to her, and what would happen to her with someone she trusted. But the company in this small spaceship could hardly be regarded as chatty. Oatmeal had barely said two words to her all day.

So she would just mope around the spaceship, staring out the window, thoughts all twisted and muddled, with the keenest sense of loneliness she'd ever felt. But space was supposed to be lonely, right? So perhaps she was just getting the genuine experience. Or perhaps, she thought bitterly, it was because she was traveling with a genius child who spent all day reading galactic news feeds and churning out code, and the meanest most irritable man she had ever met. Perhaps if she'd had the good fortune to hire a friendlier bounty hunter, she wouldn't be in this predicament.

Callie twisted in her chair one more time, letting her eyes drift over Oatmeal as he slept in the pilot's seat, feet outstretched on the console before him. He really was a horrible guy. Just the worst kind of hero. She really regretted that he of all people had to be the one to save her.

She made another face at the sleeping man, the 10th such severe glare she had given Oatmeal since he'd demanded silence only to wind up snoring like a submarine klaxon.

She turned again and caught Jelly's eye. He was smiling at her, the kind of weak-chin painful grin someone offers when they know a relative has done something stupendously embarrassing.

"So, how are you finding it in space?"

Callie was very careful not to say something snide back. Her current mood was nothing to do with Jelly. It was everything to do with Oatmeal. She shouldn't waste her bitter replies on this cute, if unnervingly smart little kid. She had noted the way Oatmeal treated Jelly, and she wasn't about to add to that pile of rubbish. Instead, she smiled warmly, almost motherly. "I'm okay, I guess," she took a moment to look pointedly at Oatmeal, "considering the circumstances."

Jelly continued with that awkward smile. "Yeah, about that - I wouldn't take what Oatmeal says to heart. He isn't as mean as he appears."

Callie tried very hard not to snigger. Not as mean as he appears? That only left room for one thing, Callie thought, Oatmeal was meaner. "So, Jelly, why do you hang around this guy? No offense, but he's really rude to you. Why do you put up with that? You seem like such a smart kid." Callie carefully checked over one shoulder to ensure Oatmeal was still snoring.

Jelly licked his lips. She was starting to realize he did that whenever he was asked a question that didn't have something to do with technology or science. He wasn't socially awkward, he was such a nice kid, but he was definitely careful about some of the things he said. She got the impression he was a thoughtful child. "We are the only family each of us has got. You don't walk out on family just because they hurt your feelings occasionally." He kept on darting his eyes back to the slumped form of Oatmeal, as if to check he really was asleep. But there was no way Oatmeal wasn't asleep with the terrible snores emanating from him like rumbles from an active volcano.

"Occasionally?" She didn't know why she was pressing the issue; Jelly was hardly going to change his mind or tell her what he really thought about Oatmeal. She didn't really know, she was just interested in how a really, really gifted child could end up with such a deadbeat when he should be working for the government and making wonderful new technology for the masses.

Jelly was still looking thoughtfully to one side and licking his lips slowly. "Oatmeal's Oatmeal. You'll learn to love him."

She let her startled eyes open till white rimmed her irises. "I really doubt that, dear."

"He's the way he is because certain things have happened to him, just as you are and I am. Underneath that gruff exterior is an even ruder, even meaner Oatmeal—"

She nodded, she'd suspected that the several times she'd bothered to scratch the surface – a much more vicious Oatmeal had always bitten back.

"But underneath that hideous layer is a nice guy. You can only see it when he's looking up at the moon on some deserted planet, and he knows no one is going to be watching him. I think he's mean half the time because he doesn't want to put up with people being nice to him."

She nodded, a seemingly thoughtful analysis from a thoughtful boy. Except she still had her doubts – it didn't matter that underneath a whole pile of trash there was a nice Oatmeal; he was still a jerk the majority of the time. "So how did you two even meet up, Jelly? Like I said before, you don't seem like natural traveling companions."

...

Jelly considered her question again before answering it. He couldn't be sure Oatmeal was asleep. In fact, he probably wasn't judging by the deliberately steady beat to his snores.

Why did they travel together? Well, not that Oatmeal would ever admit it, but Jelly was his only friend. Oatmeal liked his social misfit persona, he liked being the guy that could go into a bar and simultaneously put every single person offside without actually speaking to any of them. It was a combination of his arrogance, his disdain, his hair probably, and his general annoying personality.

But Jelly could cope; he could put up with Oatmeal even when the jerk descended into his most heinous of moods. Oatmeal could be swearing like a Galactic GI and slamming all the plaster off the walls with bruised-knuckled fists, but Jelly would still find a way to smile. Deep down Oatmeal was a nice guy - deep, deep, deep down.

He'd rescued Jelly, after all, and you really should show patience to those that save you. Well, Jelly had in turn saved Oatmeal on many, many occasions, but that wasn't the point. Oatmeal was always there for Jelly, no matter what kind of trouble they'd manage to find themselves in. Oatmeal was a hardened, galaxy-wise player, and he always knew one or two ways of getting them out of a fix, even if he usually erred on the side of shooting and swearing his way out the back door.

Plus, Jelly didn't have any family either. Like it or not, the two of them were stuck together, and in such a dangerous galaxy full of criminals, crazies, and enemies, it was nice to have company.

When it was quiet, which was anytime Oatmeal was out tracking criminals, Jelly sometimes wondered what Oatmeal actually thought of him. But deep down, Jelly already knew.

...

Oatmeal sucked in another patient breath and let out a practiced snore, ensuring his nostrils rattled and sniffed at just the right moment.

Prack this girl was stupid, really, really stupid. It was a wonder she hadn't been picked up by cRIMS before. A baby with a plastic gun could probably take her hostage.

How had he found himself traveling with Jelly? Well now, wasn't that a story?

Oatmeal had picked up Jelly on some planet close to the galactic rim. The kid had been strangely useful and had gotten Oatmeal out of a very sticky situation. Why he kept the kid around after that, well, he couldn't say. He'd told the young Jelly that he'd get him off the planet and stick him in the first orphanage that'd have him.

That had been over five years ago, now. Well, Oatmeal wasn't going to just stick the kid in any old orphanage, and he obviously hadn't found the right one yet.

But had it really been five years already? How time flies....

...

Five years ago, Meca Planet, Galactic Rim

Oatmeal grinned and leaned over the bar until the tails of his scuffed leather-vest trailed along it. Various uncoordinated, inebriated aliens had dropped their drinks all over the polished wood leaving sticky puddles of booze. Oatmeal's vest buttons tracked right through the alcohol, leaving visible lines on the bar. "So," he breathed a cloud of whiskey at the humanoid woman with deep blue skin, "fancy a bet?"

The woman bit her jet-black lips. When she smiled, her eyes appeared to change color, or maybe that was just the fancy lighting in this otherwise cheap establishment. "Hey, sugar, whatcha wanta bet?" Her lips formed each word as if she were miming them.

"Ahhh ha," Oatmeal blinked a little too slowly, the lights and the alcohol making his head tip like a ship with gutted anti-grav generators. "Anything you want."

She crossed her arms and leaned down until the ends of her flame-red hair dragged limply over the sodden bar. "Now, sugar, there's something I need to tell you." Her voice lowered till it reminded him of the rumble of a hover engine ready to take off.

"You like my pants," Oatmeal tried not to blink again, but his eyelids felt like they had rabid bears attached to them with chains, and no matter how hard he fought it, they just kept closing.

"Sure, I like your pants. But my husband don't like it when I go gambling."

Oatmeal smiled stupidly. "Husband?"

"But, sugar, don't let that stop ya. Go and gamble, boy. If you're a lucky boy, who knows what you'll win."

Oatmeal hiccupped but hid it badly with a gruff cough. "K."

"The Numbers tables are right over there." She swept a thin arm toward the back of the bar. The lighting was stronger over there, with several lights illuminating two large circular tables that had various aliens seated around them.

He could smell the sweat and alcohol from here. The aliens, of all shapes and sizes, interspersed with the occasional sickly-looking human, were all shouting and jostling as little electronic balls rolled around a sphere, finally falling out of a hole in the bottom and revealing two digital numbers.

The game was called Guess the Numbers. The GU was one for keeping names simple, something about ensuring clarity between cultures and races. Or maybe it just helped the drunks and deadbeats remember what the prack they were playing.

The woman winked again. "Are you lucky, boy?"

Oatmeal nodded concertedly and perhaps a little too keenly, considering how drunk he was.

After a while, Oatmeal settled down at the table. Another drink had somehow settled in his hand; the bar woman popped it there with another of her amazing winks.

Oatmeal watched the balls spinning around in the sphere, then smiled dumbly at his drink. He was a lucky boy, he was a very lucky boy.

.... He was awful light headed, though.

Those balls spinning in the sphere were going fast, unnervingly fast. He felt like someone had squeezed him into a jet turbine spinning round and round and round.

Oatmeal's fingers slipped over his wet glass, trying to get a firmer, more steadying grip.

Some fat alien with a giant bubble of a head jostled into him. "Your turn, human," the guy spoke like he'd swallowed a fish and the damn thing's tail was swishing around in his throat making his words wet and bubbly.

There was some kind of music playing in the background. It was tinny and repetitive. It sounded like someone beating two metal pots together over and over again.

Oatmeal picked up his drink and rested his mouth on the rim. He was putting them away tonight. He usually didn't make it past one Galactic Whiskey on the Rocks. He wasn't one to drink; he hated spending his hard-earned money on anything at all. But tonight, for some reason, he was chugging them down.

"Your turn," the fish-throat alien insisted with another jab.

"Ah.... Two and nine," Oatmeal found himself biting onto the rim of his glass, the sharp taste of alcohol tingling against his lips.

After a whir and a pop, the balls fell from the spinning sphere. Zero and zero.

The crowd of aliens and misfit humans stupid enough to wander into such a crackpot bar laughed and cheered. A double zero was worth ten times the points, if you picked it. But Oatmeal hadn't picked it, which increased his loss by a factor of ten.

Oatmeal made a noise similar to the death call of a mortally injured caveman and collapsed onto one arm. He didn't have the money to bet in the first place.

His fish-throat friend jostled him real hard this time. "Unlucky, human, ay?"

A hand, a big strong hand, settled on Oatmeal's shoulder and pulled him backward. "Gonna pay now or later, human?" Hot, stinky air washed past Oatmeal's face, and he tried not to choke.

"Later?"

The hand squeezed into a fist and struck Oatmeal squarely on the jaw, throwing him backward against the Guess the Number tables. Aliens, chairs, and little electronic balls scattered with grunts, crashes, and pops.

"Awwww," Oatmeal put a hand up to his streaming nose and felt the blood trickle through his fingers.

The guy who'd punched him, obviously the head barman, was a real big human with knuckles spread so far on his hands they looked like one of Oatmeal's feet could fit between each. The guy looked like he'd walked out of a failed growth-hormone experiment. "You still wanna pay later?" The guy spoke slow and stiff, like a really bad actor reciting their lines.

"Later?" Oatmeal pulled himself off the broken table underneath him, just as the guy landed a kick where he'd been.

Oatmeal tank rolled to one side, his hazy mind coming together just enough to let him grab at a thick splinter of wood. He hated it when perfectly good games descended into violence. Oatmeal shifted the wood from hand to hand and sneered. Was it too much to ask to have a simple night's drink and Numbers in a dodgy alien bar on the outskirts of town without everything degenerating into a fight?

By now the other aliens were all arranged around the corner of the room, making various appropriate pro-bar-brawl noises. Basically, whatever consisted of a "phwaaah!" in their home tongue.

Oatmeal quickly, feverishly scanned his environment. Behind the tables was the box used to generate the random number draw. It was thick and protected with shielding to ensure no goon with a dampening field could influence the draw. If Oatmeal could somehow push the guy up against it, the shock should be enough to fry his neurons for the time being.

Oatmeal liked having a plan.

The guy came at him, but Oatmeal rolled out of the way, managing to position himself just before the random-generator box.

He waited for the great oaf to turn and come at him again. This time Oatmeal twisted to the side as the guy lunged, and came up just behind him, planting a shoulder in the small of the guy's back, and propelling him forward and toward the shielded box.

By now the other patrons had realized Oatmeal's plans and were cheering like excited children at the zoo.

The guy slammed into the box, and the metal crunched under his huge form as if it were simply thin paper.

There was a momentary silence then a general hum in the room, which grew to an angry buzz. Why hadn't the guy been thrown back or fried like a crisp? Why hadn't there been a flash of light and a zing of burning flesh?

The guy with the fish in his throat put into words what everyone else was thinking: "why isn't the box shielded?"

The call was picked up by the other patrons, who by now had realized that something was wrong. An unshielded random-generator box could no longer be considered random. You could bet both your legs and your grandmother's cruiser that whatever numbers were coming out of the game were rigged without a shield in place.

And no one likes a cheater.

Oatmeal looked around with the beginnings of a very satisfied, if not sleepy, smile on his face. "No one likes a cheater, do they?" He shrugged his shoulders at the barman who was just picking himself up from the shattered box.

The guy's face was pale and drawn. He obviously knew the game was up. Beating the pulp out of an inebriated, skinny human was one thing, but jilting a room full of angry, armed aliens was another. The guy put his truck-sized hands up in peace and tried for a thin grin.

One of the taller, meaner looking aliens pulled a pulse gun. "Whatssss thiss? We were promisssed a fair game."

By now the woman that had served Oatmeal and had convinced him to play was nowhere to be seen. That only left his violent friend in the middle of a room of angry aliens. Looks like Oatmeal wouldn't have to pay back the money. He was a lucky boy after all. "Yeah, buddy, how come you're cheating us all?"

The word "cheating" was like a battle cry, and more aliens pulled out their weapons, everything from ray-guns to quadruple-bladed stun-rods. It was very colorful and quite marvelous.

The guy swallowed loud and clear. "Just a mistake, honest."

"Mistake?" Yeah right, Oatmeal wasn't about to let the guy get away with this. The angry-alien-patron army was his free ticket out of this bar. He would ensure they stayed angry for now. "This guy had the whole thing rigged since the beginning! Look at that box," Oatmeal pointed dramatically at the remains of the metal box that had almost been pulled from the wall, "that didn't even have basic shielding. This guy was screwing us all!"

Oatmeal was heartened by the general angry mumbles his statement received.

"The human is right," he heard. "This guy's been cheating us all."

Oatmeal crossed his arms and nodded sagely.

The barman looked paler and paler with every moment, probably imagining just how much harm his very armed and angry clientele could do. This bar was on the rim of town – it would take the GP a while to get here, and they would hardly be sympathetic once they realized he was running an illegal gambling business.

Oatmeal half-wondered how the guy was going to get out of this. He didn't look like he had the brain cells left to actually think of a plan of escape. That left two options: fight his way out and be zapped, rayed, shot and stabbed, or just blame someone else.

The guy wiped a palm on his gray t-shirt, and it left a track of sweat across the fabric. "It wasn't me, guys. It was the kid." He pointed desperately at a small figure that was just nearing the back door. "He made the changes and took the biggest cut. Honest. You think I have the brains to do this prack?"

Oatmeal gave a conceding nod at this. The guy was right; if he didn't have the brains not to get into a sprawling bar fight right in front of his unshielded Numbers table, then there was no way in the universe he had the noggin to fix the generator.

By now all the other aliens were looking up at the shadowy figure of the kid, and more than several weapons were pointed his direction.

"Hey, you," someone shouted with a voice that sounded like a thousand trapped mosquitoes, "get over here."

The kid turned slowly and carefully and took very measured steps toward the group. As he came under the more powerful lighting of the gambling area, it became clear he could be no more than eight-years-old. He had a very round, very fleshy face, and his eyes were lost somewhere between his cheeks and his forehead.

He didn't look so much nervous as slightly put out. He shuffled his hands into his pockets and darted his small eyes around the room. Probably taking in the fact he was now the center of attention for a room of heavily armed, terribly aggravated aliens.

"He's just a kid," Oatmeal felt the need to point out. He couldn't see why he was being vocal on this matter. Ordinarily, anything that took the attention from his own guilt was a cause to be supported. But for some reason, he felt compelled to point out to the alien militia behind him that this kid was just that – a child.

There was a mumble from the militia, some pointing their weapons back at the bear-sized barman.

"How could a kid rig the machine, human? He has such a small brain."

The kid coughed politely but didn't interrupt.

"Rigging generators is hard work," the tall mosquito alien conceded. "You expect us to believe such a small human was capable of such a thing?"

"The kid's a genius." The huge barman's face was going red. "I caught him on the edge of town selling ray-guns he'd managed to debug. The kid is a genius, honest!" He repeated earnestly, his face really, really red now.

Debugging ray-guns? When a ray-gun was seized by the GP, rather than trash it for scrap metal, they'd just lock out the program with a fractal encryption code. It was impossible to break the code. All the GP had to do was wave one of their scanners over it and the virus would be uploaded and would lock the gun from any further use. The thing would only be good as a paperweight after the GP had finished with it. It was much easier than taking the weapons back to base and scrapping them.

Plus, very, very few people could break the codes, and if they were that smart, why would they even bother? There was better money to be had elsewhere in the galaxy. But apparently, the GP hadn't considered some precocious little kid with nothing better to do.

Oatmeal looked at the kid with fresh eyes. He doubted the barman was lying; it was too creative to be concocted by a guy who looked like he ate a cow for breakfast, lunch, and tea. No, now Oatmeal looked again at this kid, he could see it. The way those tiny brown eyes looked out at the world like it was a stream of constant numbers. And the relaxed position of his shoulders, which were held limply, his arms hanging down with the help of gravity alone. He looked like he only moved if it was really important. Otherwise, he was happy to just observe and analyze.

The kid looked exactly like a genius.

"Seriously," the barman tried for another round of convincing his persecutors that it was all the fault of the tiny little human before them, "the kid offered to rig my tables if he could take a 50-percent cut."

The kid didn't look down, but his eyes did flick quickly to the side at this assertion.

Oatmeal wouldn't wonder that the kid offered to rig the tables for a cut, but he was willing to bet all the money he didn't have that the barman wouldn't have settled for 50%. Prack no, that guy would have settled for not kicking the kid in the guts, and maybe even giving him board, so he didn't run off and tell the GP.

By now the angry patrons were starting to get itchy. They had drawn their weapons expecting to exact revenge from whoever the prack had rigged the tables. But what with all this discussion, they were getting frustrated.

If things continued like this, both the kid and the barman would get it. For some reason this irked Oatmeal. For some reason, he found himself thinking that it was just a little unfair that the kid would have to pay for the barman's sins. After all, even if the kid had suggested rigging the tables, the barman was still the one that had broken Oatmeal's nose. Rigging tables to make a buck was one thing, but touching Oatmeal's face was something else altogether.

"I'll tell you what," Oatmeal found himself speaking before he had formulated a plan, "I'll deal with the kid, you guys deal with the barman."

It was an outlandish statement. Why would the angry aliens behind him, the ones he didn't know, the ones who didn't owe him anything, why would those aliens just let Oatmeal walk out with the kid?

Well, Oatmeal was drunk, and it had seemed like a good plan at the time.

The guy who sounded like he had a fish in his throat laughed, and it was like water bubbles rising to the surface. "Prack off, human." Oatmeal felt a gun squeeze into the small of his back. "You working for the barman too?"

Oatmeal crossed his arms, not that bothered by the hard edge of the pulse gun sticking into his muscles. "He broke my nose and tried to kill me... of course we're working together."

Few aliens get human sarcasm, and this Oatmeal was well aware of. So it was no surprise when he heard the whir of the pulse gun starting up.

"Cheater," the fish-throat guy croaked.

"You're welcome," Oatmeal shoved backward into the gun, ensuring he hooked his elbow backward so it knocked the weapon onto the ground. Oatmeal then buried a punch into the thick flesh around the alien's throat, landing it somewhere that made a crack.

The guy spluttered and leaned backward like a felled tree.

Oatmeal grabbed for the pulse gun, just as the other aliens let loose with their various weapons.

Oatmeal ducked and rolled and shot at the lighting the first chance he got. The lights exploded in a quick shower of bright sparks, before plunging the room into sudden darkness.

Oatmeal quickly jumped to his feet and ran for the place the kid had been. He had finite time to grab the fat-faced genius and get him the hell out of here. Eventually one of the smarter aliens would realize their pulse guns could light up the darkest of nights, and these guys were hardly the kind to care about collateral damage.

Luckily Oatmeal managed to secure an arm around something small and vaguely kid-shaped. The kid made a spluttering noise, but Oatmeal just propelled them both forward. Even in his drunken state, he still remembered the direction of the back entrance. Oatmeal always made it his business to ascertain the back route out of any building he entered. He wasn't the kind of guy who could just leave a place quietly and politely.

The kid sounded like he wanted to say something, but Oatmeal had such a tight hold around his middle, he didn't seem to have the breath.

This was a good thing; Oatmeal didn't need to be shot protecting a kid, a kid he should not be protecting at all. He had a reputation to keep up – and saving children came nowhere near his usual activates. There wasn't going to be any money to be had out of this.

Oatmeal shouldered the back door open and instantly ducked to the side with the kid, just as a barrage of pulse beams shot through behind him.

"Pracking trigger-happy aliens," Oatmeal managed through his erratic breaths. He didn't let go of the kid for one second. Fortunately, the little runt was small enough that Oatmeal could secure him under one arm and didn't have to worry about his spindly legs dragging behind them. He was heavy, though.

"There's a cruiser bike around the side," the kid wheezed despite Oatmeal's firm hold around his middle. "It's the owners," another shuddering breath, "I know the ignition codes."

"Who said I'm saving you, kid?" Oatmeal took a sharp turn and pelted down the side of the building.

He saw the bike set up against the wall, with a coil of shielded chain keeping it firmly secured.

"You better work fast, kid," Oatmeal almost threw the kid down, "who I'm not saving," he added absentmindedly as he checked over his shoulder for signs that his alien hunters would be rounding the corner to continue the festivities.

"Okay, sir." The kid patted his hands against his pants and instantly keyed in the security codes with very quick and agile fingers.

Oatmeal redoubled his grip on the pulse gun, trying to spread his fingers wide enough over the large, alien grip so he could fire it and not drop it all at the same time. "Sir, ha?" The first of the aliens rounded the corner and Oatmeal shot out the window above him, causing a sheet of shatter-proof glass to crash down. "No one's ever called me that, kid."

The bike rumbled into life, and the kid stood back. "It's on, sir."

"Right," Oatmeal twisted his body to the side, firing off shots as he mounted the bike. He secured the kid before him and hit the accelerator.

The bike shot forward, Oatmeal doing his best to simultaneously shoot, drive, and not black out from the dubious alien cocktail threading through his veins.

The kid said something that sounded like "thank you" but could easily have been "prank you."

Oatmeal didn't smile; he was too busy and too drunk. But the thought had crossed his mind.

Oh well, just another night in the life of Oatmeal. One of these days he was going to have to stay in and order alien curry. Too much excitement wasn't good for the heart.

...

"Hey you, Jelly face!" Oatmeal blinked his eyes awake, uncrossing his legs from the chair opposite him and making the effort to check the flight instruments to ensure they were still on course.

Callie startled, yelping and shifting back on her chair; she'd obviously thought he'd been asleep. Well, she was the least observant person he'd ever had the displeasure of running into.

He yawned slowly, mostly making an effort to shift his mouth around, making it real obvious he wasn't shouting yet. The longer he just sat there in silence, the more she'd shift back in her chair like a frightened mouse.

"I thought you were asleep!" Her voice reminded him of an alarm whirring and yelping – annoying and hard to ignore.

"If you wanted to know about my relationship with Jelly," he crossed his arms, and turned away from the view screen until he faced her directly, "you should have just asked."

Jelly laughed quietly but didn't look around from checking the navigational computer.

"But you were asleep!"

"I picked the kid up on a planet you wouldn't know in a system you wouldn't know for reasons you couldn't possibly comprehend."

Her nervousness abated a little, and she cocked her head to the side, her thick fringe falling in front of her eyes. "You mean you have a heart? You're right; I do find that hard to comprehend."

He twisted his tongue around in his mouth. This chick was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. "Jelly is a gifted little kid. He can debug a ray-gun and hack into secret government files. I like having Jelly around. Unlike other people in this cruiser." He made an effort of looking around the cramped cockpit before settling his eyes on her.

Jelly finally turned to him, eyes almost completely lost under his cheeks. Was he smiling? "Wow, you've never said you like having me around before, sir."

Oatmeal let out an annoyed cough. Damn, he'd actually said that, hadn't he? "Well look, it's only because I hate having her around, and in comparison, you're an angel, kid. Don't worry, though; I'll put you in the first orphanage that will take you."

Jelly nodded solemnly, "of course." He turned back to his instruments. That thing, if it was a smile, was still on his face.

The situation was getting out of hand. He'd complimented Jelly, and Callie was now looking at him with a mixture of "aww" and "grrrr." She had a placid smile, but her eyebrows were twitching and squeezing her eyes until they were slits. It was off-putting....

"You are a horrible man," Callie shifted forward in her chair, half like she was getting ready to leap at him.

He leaned forward, arms still crossed, trying to make his expression as sarcastic as possible. "Awwww, is someone a little hurt? Don't like people telling you you're a little pracking—"

She slapped him and walked out.

# Chapter 12

The Commissioner had both hands either side of the viewscreen, the tendons of each finger spread so wide they appeared as thick white lines against her pale skin. She couldn't believe what she was watching.

It had taken several days to decode some of the footage confiscated off the Outlier cruiser, but now she could witness in perfect quality the treachery of Doctor Riverside. The Outliers had been meticulous in recording each and every meeting between their contact and the Doctor, and such detail was now proving invaluable in her investigation into the greatest case of treason in the GU's history.

She had specifically asked to be able to watch each and every surveillance file, instead of leaving it up to the analysts. She wanted to see every detail, just as they would, she wanted to see it all. But she had not been counting on the fact it would make her sick to her stomach.

Since she had first heard of Doctor Riverside's treachery, the Commissioner had been unable to believe that such a far-sweeping breach in security had gone undetected for so long. But that, in part, was simply explainable by the position of the man himself. This was no ordinary act of treason, and it wasn't committed by an ordinary criminal. Doctor Riverside had been the head of the Galactic Secret Service.

The Commissioner wasn't alone in thinking of the Galactic security community as a family. What with the sheer vastness and complicated nature of their task, there was a distinctive camaraderie between the heads of each branch of the GU Security Forces. They all knew their job was impossible and that they all had to get along if they wanted anything to work at all.

So perhaps that was why the Commissioner ticked her head with such bitter nervousness as she re-watched the surveillance footage before her. She was way beyond disbelief; the past several hellish days of dealing with Doctor Riverside's treason had been far too gritty and real for her to entertain the possibility it was all a dream. She hadn't slept, she'd hardly had time to eat, and she was living mostly on bitter Adortan coffee that had left a semi-permanent brown stain on her lips.

They had buried Doctor Riverside in quick fashion, as per the custom of his race, not that there had been anything much left to bury. But the heads of GU departments, senators, and even the President herself had gathered at the official cemetery satellite to pay their respects.

But it was remarkable, looking back, how quickly the investigation had managed to come together after that point. The initial security reports of Doctor Riverside's apartment revealed that his shields, designed to protect him from the very attack that had taken his life, had been turned off a split second before the missile had torn through the building. And they'd been turned off from the security panel inside the house. That had been the first indication that the murder of Doctor Riverside had not been as simple as it had once appeared. And when the Destroyer Tech had been found, everything had changed.

Now the Commissioner pressed forward in her chair, watched it all again. She watched the surveillance footage some wizardly tech-scientist had managed to salvage from Doctor Riverside's apartment. She watched again as a man she once knew well, once trusted and relied on, watched as he was literally driven mad by the Destroyer Tech. He'd always had such even features, but now they were so distorted, so enraged and subverted, he looked more like a photocopy of himself that had been scrunched up and stamped on.

The device had snapped his mind, broken it, crushed and utterly destroyed it. Without hope of retrieval, without hope of ever returning the Doctor to his once normal state – the Destroyer Tech had been complete in its evil work. But such was the risk of Destroyer Technology, a risk that Doctor Riverside, as head of the GSS, should have known all too well. No Destroyer Tech could be trusted. Built into every last circuit of every last device was the intent to destroy the Milky Way.

The Commissioner turned off the video feed with a curt wave of her hand, just before a sharp chirp told her someone was entering her office.

She looked up. "Petronus, tell me you have better news this time."

The Senator shrugged his wire-thin frame, the fabric of his gown shifting around him as if he were little more than a coat hanger. "I have news, yes. Better isn't a term that can be used to describe any of this mess. But this news is certainly something you have requested."

She let her nostrils flare with interest. "You have the names on the list?"

He shook his head sharply. "I have the name of the contact in the Outliers, the one that groomed Doctor Riverside and got him addicted to the Destroyer Tech."

The Commissioner sniffed sharply. At least that was something. "Well?"

"Steve Whitmore. He's a survivor from planet Onus." Petronus ran a bony hand that looked more like a plaster cast, judging by the white pallid color, over his mouth.

"Onus?"

"It was destroyed about 20 years ago, now. A planet on the rim. Don't you remember the incident? Some fringe group aligned with the Outliers coupled some Destroyer Tech right onto the planet's core...."

The Commissioner massaged her brow, her fingers pressing into her skin until she could feel the bone. She remembered now. It had been a bit before her time, but the repercussions of the incident had been significant. "Yes, I remember now. Unfortunate business."

Petronus nodded as if "unfortunate" was the best word he could think of to describe the mess too. "Whitmore survived it as a child—"

"And became a disgruntled, detached youth ready to join up with the first group that could promise him revenge on the government that failed to save his planet. Yes, I can fill in the gaps."

"Indeed, a familiar story. Whitmore has simply proven to be more effective than most disenfranchised young men and has risen up the ranks of the Outliers in quick fashion. He appears to have a lethal combination of motivation, cunning, and a willingness to go to lengths others will not."

"You mean he'll deliberately get a person hooked onto a device that will slowly and completely corrupt their mind? Petronus, the mere fact that this Whitmore character will consider using the technology of the Destroyers is reason enough for me to believe he is a monster of the highest order."

Petronus' nod was sharp. "Indeed. Well, this is our man, Whitmore, this is our way into the Outliers. Find him, and we can start to unravel this complicated web."

"I assume you wouldn't bother to come here without having completed his background scan?"

Petronus produced a small info token from one of the folds of his gown and placed it delicately at the edge of the Commissioner's wide desk. "Everything you need to know – his complete bio, his known associates – it's all there."

"Known associates?"

"Mostly in the Outliers, but he also appears to have other associates dotted around the galaxy as well as a half-brother."

"Half-brother?" the Commissioner asked quickly.

"A bounty hunter who goes by the dubious name of Oatmeal, real name: James Smith."

"I can see why he chose to go with Oatmeal. Do we know if this James Smith is involved?"

Petronas shrugged. "Not for sure; it doesn't seem they have much to do with each other. I mean, if your big brother was an infamous terrorist, would you always be going around to his place for tea?"

The Commissioner let a wry smile stretch her lips, the first time she'd grinned in days. "If my big brother was a terrorist, I would hand him into the GP. Considering the circumstances, I'm going to arrange a warrant for the arrest of this James Smith. I have a feeling he will be easier to find than his brother, and perhaps more talkative. Considering the sheer severity of our current situation, I think this is appropriate. Do you object?"

Petronas simply shook his head.

Before either of them could discuss the situation further, a soft red blip appeared on the center of the Commissioner's view screen, followed by the name and picture of the Head Scientist at the Dream Rooms.

The Commissioner quickly put out her hand to silence Petronas before he could speak again. "I have to take this."

...

Doctor Tapper latched a finger onto the collar of his lab coat and rested it there. In all his years of presiding over perhaps the most prestigious scientific job in the galaxy, it never came naturally to him when he had to call someone in the upper echelons of the government. They always appeared to be so busy and frightfully put out by even the shortest call. So he avoided contacting them wherever possible. But he'd been putting off this call for too long now.

"Commissioner Pk'ty, I'm sorry to have to contact you, especially considering the situation."

"Doctor, do not ever think I'm not to be contacted. Why have you called?"

He hesitated; he could feel the uncertainty he'd been grappling with all morning twist around his gut. "I'm afraid, as per regulations, I'm forced to inform you when we encounter problem readings in high-level dreamers."

There was a keen pause from the other end of the audio feed. He could almost feel the Commissioner's annoyance. On top of everything else, she probably didn't need to hear this. "Indeed, I have been meaning to call you myself. I trust you have been informed Doctor Riverside handed on a list of Retiree identities to a terrorist group? I presume you're calling to tell me we are losing the first targets."

The Doctor blinked feverishly for a moment, before catching himself and pressing his thumb and fingers over his eyes to quiet them. "I'm afraid that isn't why I'm calling you, though it is true that we have registered worrying readings in a number of dreamers."

"Then why are you calling?" the Commissioner asked quickly.

"As per Regulation 79, I'm required to call the head of the GSS when we register unusual readings with an Ultimate. As I... as there is currently no director of the GSS, I'm required to call you instead."

Two dull thumps filtered through the audio file, as if the Commissioner had hit her desk with the stiff palms of both hands. "Are you telling me there is something wrong with Zero?"

He wet his lips. "No, I'm just telling you that for several days now we have been receiving some unusual readings. It is nothing to worry about for the time being, but I'm still required to inform you."

"What do you believe is the origin of these unusual readings? Do you believe the Retiree of Zero is in trouble?"

The Doctor took a moment to think. He had to be very careful about what he told the Commissioner next. If he downplayed the readings he was receiving too much, then his call to her would seem foolhardy. But on the other hand, if he stressed that they had never in the 20 years of Zero's Retirement ever received aberrations like this, then the Commissioner may seek to have Zero pulled from Retirement early. His predecessor had told him that under no circumstances was he to allow Zero's Retirement to be cut short. "The readings suggest the Retiree of Zero is currently involved in a stressful situation. Though the readings do not suggest she is in immediate danger, they imply her situation is in some way unusual, quite unusual."

The Commissioner sighed deeply, the reverberation from her voice echoing through the audio line. "I have to be honest with you, Doctor, this couldn't have come at a worse time. I'm sure you're aware that decisions over the Retirement of any Ultimate, especially Zero, have to be deliberated on by the entire Security Council. And again, as I'm sure you're aware, the Security Council cannot meet until the inquiry into the death of Doctor Riverside has been completed. If you continue to receive further unusual or worrying readings, then I am afraid we will have to contact the President directly." The weariness in the Commissioner's voice was apparent, and the Doctor felt great sympathy for her. He would not want to be in her position right now.

"I'm sure it won't come to that; I'm sure these readings are benign. But...." There was one question that had been burning in his mind ever since he'd been informed of the particular treason of Doctor Riverside. If he indeed had passed a list onto the Outliers, a list full of names and identities of Retired officials, then who exactly was on that list? Could she be on that list?

"No, I know what you're thinking, Doctor, and the answer is no. Not even Doctor Riverside knew the Retired identity of Zero. It is one of the closest kept secrets in the galaxy, and trust me, Doctor, Riverside would not have known and would have had no way to find out. There are two people in the whole universe who know what Zero dreams of. The President and the Shaman. There is no way anyone else could find out."

"Three people I think you mean."

"What?!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I simply meant that the third person who knows what Zero dreams of is Zero herself." The Doctor's cheeks warmed slightly at his apparently frivolous comment.

"Oh, of course, Doctor. But my point is: no matter how treacherous Doctor Riverside may have become, there is just no way he would have been able to secure the identity of Zero. Rest assured on that - no way."

The doctor did feel as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "I guess you're right. I will continue to watch the readings of Zero nonetheless."

"Of course. And please inform me if we lose any other dreamers. These are hard times, Doctor; things seem to be quickening." There was real fatigue in the Commissioner's voice now, and it occurred to the Doctor this was perhaps the first time she'd been able to express her hopes and fears since this whole mess had begun. "Have you heard of the shadow passed the rim?"

To be honest, the Doctor had not been able to follow that much news in the past week. Too many other things were keeping him too busy to pay attention to anything other than the situation in this very facility. But he had overheard from one of the other scientists there was a very strange shadow that had appeared in the empty space beyond the Milky Way. "In passing, though I haven't had a chance to look into it further." He had to be careful about what he said here; though he was sure the shadow was an intriguing cosmological event, he had to be careful not to let the Commissioner clutch on to any other uncertain situations and become overwhelmed by all the unanswered questions. "Though I am certain it is nothing to worry about."

"The Academy of Science said something similar, or at least that's what they told the press." The Commissioner's voice was very heavy and ominous.

The Doctor found himself shivering. "What do you mean?"

"Let's just say that contrary to initial reports, this is no ordinary shadow on our scanners. It appears to be an actual shadow in space."

If the Doctor had shivered uncontrollably before, his whole body twitched with a sudden and bitter chill. "What do you mean a real shadow in space? A shadow can only be cast in the presence of light. Surely the use of this word is inaccurate. What exactly do they mean?"

"The problem is, Doctor, they mean precisely that: a shadow in space."

...

Jelly never sat comfortably in the navigational chair. It wasn't that he imagined himself more comfortable being in the plush seat of the pilot, it was just that his small form wasn't suited to it. So he shifted uncomfortably again, stretching out his knuckles and cracking them till they gave dull but satisfying pops.

They were arguing again. It had almost been a week now since they'd agreed to take Callie to the Identity Offices on the galactic homeworld, but Jelly was sure they were undergoing some kind of time dilation because it felt like several years.

"I just can't believe you, Oatmeal; why can't you let me have the last apple? I could get scurvy, you know. I could die of vitamin deficiency before we even reach the bloody galactic homeworld," Callie's voice, sharp and insistent, filtered in from the back of the spaceship.

"Die of vitamin deficiency in three weeks? How have you not died of stupidity sooner? Is your Retired mind of the simplest, dumbest ameba in the universe? You see, this is my apple. And no, I just don't care if you get scurvy," Oatmeal's voice was equally insistent but had that subtle teasing tone Jelly was sure Callie wasn't capable of picking up on yet.

There was the sound of somebody biting loudly into an apple.

Jelly rolled his eyes and tried to block out the constant bickering. He was trying to read the news, and he couldn't concentrate with those two nattering in the background. And there was quite a bit of news to read.

Jelly scanned another chunk of text quickly. The news wasn't exactly boring at the moment. In fact, over the last couple of days, it had been virtually impossible to remove him from the viewscreen. First, it had been the fallout from the change in the Identity Laws, then the sudden and seemingly implausible murder of Doctor Riverside, and now the strange shadow near the galactic rim. The Academy of Science had come out and said the shadow was nothing more than a problem with long-range scanners. But if that were the case, why had a battleship been dispatched to the area? And rumors had it there was even an Ultimate onboard.

Jelly kneaded the side of his cheek with the corner of his knuckles, something he always did when he became really involved in what he read.

Until now the press had been very coy about revealing the precise location of the shadow. After all, there was an awful lot of rim to the Milky Way. But according to a hacker's feed he often tapped into, the shadow was virtually at the back door of No Man's Land. Unfortunately, Jelly knew that section of space quite well. Oatmeal would often drag him along to see that fool of a man Steve. Jelly found the whole area quite terrifying, and the 12 abandoned space stations that served as the Outliers headquarters had given him nightmares. How Oatmeal, the ferociously independent bounty hunter, could still have anything to do with Steve was often a cause for worry in Jelly. He was genuinely fond of Oatmeal and hated to see him manipulated and used by such a devious monster. But Oatmeal couldn't see it, and he insisted that Steve was family.

Jelly was forced to crack his knuckles again; this really was interesting stuff. So Steve and the Outliers obviously had something to do with the strange shadow. It wasn't such a stretch of the imagination to conclude that if something so mysterious and strange was occurring around No Man's Land, that the Outliers were directly responsible. Jelly would bet all the money he never had that this was all some plot and that Steve would be directly in the center of it.

This was really the kind of information he should pass on to Oatmeal. But Jelly couldn't quite imagine how the conversation would go. He could hardly lean over the table while Oatmeal and Callie were arguing about dinner and inform his boss that his half-brother was tearing holes in the fabric of space-time again. Oatmeal hated to hear anything bad about Steve.

There was a crash from the other room and a momentary break in the bickering.

"Are you all right?" Oatmeal's voice had a genuine note of concern.

"Oh, my word, I didn't realize it would break like that. I mean, it's supposed to be futuristic technology. I would have thought it would be tougher."

"Stop blabbering. Are you alright?" Oatmeal's tone, though brutal, was still laced with concern. "Look, you cut yourself, you idiot. Come over here, and I'll fix it up."

"Oh... I didn't realize I was bleeding that much."

"Just don't go bleeding over my vest, and don't wave your hand about like that; you will just make it bleed faster."

"Oh... I'm starting to feel a little lightheaded."

"Come here, idiot."

Jelly shook his head and let a wistful smile take to his lips. That girl was like a force of nature. She had to be to withstand the storm that was Oatmeal. Though Jelly would never point it out on pain of death, Oatmeal was a pricklier, yet softer person around her. The Oatmeal Jelly knew, for instance, would have spent the whole trip brooding in his bunk, replaying whatever memory it was that haunted him so much. But with her around, he seemed too distracted. Oatmeal apparently took great pleasure in trying to make her miserable. Or rather than miserable, at least terribly annoyed. And part of Jelly, the part that knew there was a nice guy deep down somewhere in Oatmeal, wondered whether the hardened bounty hunter was trying to keep her distracted so she wouldn't become overwhelmed by her situation.

The console next to Jelly beeped suddenly, and he leaned over to check on it. Jelly had specifically kept open the hacked feed to the GP that had told him about the shadow in No Man's Land. Now the feed was producing another tasty morsel.

Jelly almost swore, almost, because Oatmeal was the one that swore; Jelly was too darn smart to do that. Instead, he crammed one fist into his mouth. "Oh, my God," he mumbled, "oh my God."

"Would you stop shuffling around like that, just stand still while the bio wand heals your wound. And why are you so red? You'd better not be coming down with Terian flu," Oatmeal's voice filtered in from the other room.

"Never mind that," Callie's voice had a little waver, "just hurry up and fix it."

Quickly, nervously, like a rat running away from a sudden, terrifying noise, Jelly darted from his chair and scurried into the next room.

They both looked up at him as he entered. Oatmeal was standing over Callie, holding her forearm and waving a bio wand over the modest cut below her shoulder. She was blushing a ruddy color like a red-alert klaxon, and Jelly was almost distracted by how cute the scene was. Then he remembered what had chased him out of his chair.

"Sir! Ah, you... really don't want to see this...."

Oatmeal looked up, expression contorted with concentration and obvious annoyance at Jelly's interruption. "Why did you just run into the room and tell me that I don't want to see something? There are many, many things in this galaxy that I don't want to see – you, right now, are one of them."

"Hey, don't be like that. This is Jelly we're talking about," Callie's eyebrows stiffened, even if she still was blushing. "He's the smartest guy I've ever met – if he just ran into the room looking all flustered and red, telling us we really don't want to see something, don't you think we should pay attention to him?"

"Don't you think you should shut up while I fix your arm?"

Callie's blush was beginning to be replaced, not by continued embarrassment at the proximity of Oatmeal, but by frustration. She opened her mouth to rebut his comment, but Jelly didn't have time for another domestic.

"You know you told me to tell you the minute you became a wanted criminal..." Jelly let his voice trail off at the sudden cold snap that froze Oatmeal's features.

"What?"

"The GP has just put out a warrant for your arrest."

...

Commander Line sat back in his command chair and surveyed the bridge. The bridge crew were busy on their respective consoles, checking readings, ensuring they were on course, and desperately scanning every centimeter of space to find the AWOL Retiree Callie Hope.

Things were as they should be. Though the Commander couldn't be sure which ship the Retiree was on, he was confident they would find her soon. Unfortunately, several cruisers had left Earth around the time Callie was estimated to have departed. Without the ability to issue a warrant, the Commander could hardly have each and every cruiser stopped and searched. No, if he wanted to find Callie, he had to do it the old-fashioned way. Each and every sensor reading available from the trails the departed ships had left, had to be analyzed and reanalyzed for any indication the Retiree was onboard.

"Commander." A junior officer stepped up to the side of his chair and offered him a com-pad with a stiff movement. "These are the latest official briefings to come in from headquarters."

The Commander nodded and snatched up the com-pad quickly. He was finding less and less time for pleasantries these days. He flicked through the buttons that allowed him to scan the electronic content.

Several Retirees had been killed in the expected backlash from the change of Identity Laws, and there was a general warning to all GP officers to ensure that no further lives were lost. Though this information was interesting, it was the next item that piqued the Commander's interest. They were finally releasing the exact location of the shadow that had appeared at the rim of the galaxy. No Man's Land. The Commander knew it well.

As a new recruit, he'd flown many missions to No Man's Land. In those days, there'd been a real push to ensure that section of space didn't fall into the hands of cRIMS. The Commander could remember the several run-ins he'd had with the cRIMS, that in those days had been dotted around that area. But more than that, he distinctly remembered the time the GP had clashed with the Outliers. Now, there was a true enemy. Any group of fools desperate and dumb enough to use Destroyer Tech deserved to receive their just rewards.

If this shadow was so close to the home of the Outliers, there was only one thing the GU should do. And they should have done it years ago. They should have done it before the Outliers had been allowed to take hold. They should assemble several battleships, take them in, and force those pracks out. Roundup the criminals and stop them before they could do anything else to harm the Milky Way.

In another moment, the Commander realized his hold on his com-pad was too tight, and he slackened his grip before he bent the thin pad in two.

"Sir, we have just received the list of new warrants issued for this section of space, and I think you will be interested in who is on it."

The Commander looked over the edge of his pad. "Who?"

"Do you remember that bounty hunter, the one that led you to Callie Hope? Well apparently, the Commissioner herself has just put out a top-level priority-warrant for his arrest."

"Top-level priority-warrant for his arrest," the Commander repeated the delicious words, savoring every moment. The thought, of course, had entered his mind that Callie was traveling with that scum of a bounty hunter. But, until now, he'd had no way of narrowing down the ships in this section of space to the one that she, and presumably he, were traveling on. After all, the kid's ship hardly had Oatmeal written on the side. But this changed everything. With a top-level priority-warrant, the Commander now had the authority to stop every single ship in this sector and search it. He now had his way in. "Let's not keep the Commissioner waiting."

The end of Zero Episode One. The final installment in this series – Zero Episode Two – is currently available.

For updates and information on upcoming releases, please sign up to the Odette C. Bell Newsletter. Thanks!

A Plain Jane

Betrothed

Shattered Destiny: A Galactic Adventure

The Betwixt

Ghost of Mind

Lucky Star

The Crucible

Ouroboros Series (Miniseries #1 of the Galactic Coalition Academy Series)

Broken (Miniseries #2 of the Galactic Coalition Academy Series)

Axira (Miniseries #3 of the Galactic Coalition Academy Series)

The Lost Star (Miniseries #4 of the Galactic Coalition Academy Series)

Fractured Mind (Miniseries #4 of the Galactic Coalition Academy Series)

