

THE RESTWELL BOYS

By

Travis Barr

© 2017 by Travis Barr

The story you are about to read is true.

I mean, it could be.

I mean, it does happen in another galaxy unknown to ours, so it could be absolute fact that was transmitted to my mind through some sort of unknown technology.

You don't know.

Also, many of the names of the characters, places, and things in this story have been changed.

For no reason at all.

Chapter 1

And so here they were, four boys of different alien origin from four different worlds who were striking out on their own, making a name for themselves.

That was the plan anyway.

Theoretically, they possessed the tools necessary for the job. There was "The Vaccuumater," a lengthy device that could suck up a pesky critter and trap it for future storage. Then there was "The Shockinater," another long tool typically used to zap critters—and drive them into the path of the aforementioned Vaccuumater. In addition, their arsenal included "The Webinater," a gun to catapult web nets at critters, "The Fuminater," a gun that gasses critters too quick or small to be trapped, and "Traunt Detectors," infrared scanner devices to ferret out traunt critters.

And there was their most important weapon of all—the boys themselves. Or so it would seem at any rate.

The unofficial leader of this business venture was a young man by the name of Cordann Blu, hailing from the planet Dooshlodia. Cordann's immediate family consisted of a mother and father, two younger twin brothers, and a younger sister. The mother, Betley, was an aloof sort who spent most of her time pruning and pining over her plant garden. The father, Caradeen, was just a plain pretentious jerk who came from money and was clearly obsessed with his reputation...and fried pork. Morski and Korski were clearly chips off the old sociopathic block, as they repeatedly displayed their propensity for opportunistic connivance. In stark contrast, however, was Cordann's younger sister, Lania—a somewhat insecure wallflower who was rather ignored by the rest of the family. Except for Cordann, who always encouraged Lania to find a life direction and pursue it head on.

But enough about Cordann the Dooshlodian, the next boy of our attention is Neffelefekus, an Enzymian from the planet Andor who was naturally sensitive about his name. Neff, as the other boys called him, had more than a passing interest in hypnotherapy, and had studied the field extensively at the Andorian University of Fralton.

His family was made up of a father named Koleffekus, an industrious man who dealt in fuel production. The mother was Stona, the embodiment of an overprotective mother to her two children. She smothered them in many ways...and sometimes the offspring had a strong desire to smother her—in her sleep. The daughter, big sister to Neff was named Caldona, who would pester Neff frequently regarding Cordann. It was evident she had the hots for her brother's friend.

The third boy of interest is called Parn, a Paxellian from the planet, Subpaxel. Parn is the young man who first suggested that the four chums enter into a business venture together.

His family was deeply entrenched in politics—father, Smeldus was governor of Keedo City. But mother, Itshtinx was truly the political muscle behind her husband's governorship. Both parents were typically busy as hell, and it was a wonder that they even had Parn in the first place. Certainly they had no time to produce a second child.

And the fourth and final rascal of this new career venture came in the form of Morch Caletskian, or "Morch the Porch," a Minisculian hailing from the planet Cubaat. Morch was blessed with two mothers, Peesha and Excreesha. Together, the same gender parents ruled the male enhancement industry on Cubaat and a few other "afflicted" planets. Peesha was quite a direct woman and not very sparing of feelings—particularly of those who worked for her and her partner. Excreesha possessed a bit more in the way of diplomatic graces, yet in her own way she could be just as manipulative as her life mate.

Both moguls of the lucrative "unit fix-it" trade had clear intentions of gearing Morch to follow in their footsteps, take over the reigns of their empire someday. But Morch, of course, had other plans for a self-sustaining career.

Restwell Mind and Pest Cleaners was the name of their small and fledgling company. And as mentioned before, the four boys owned the tools necessary to perform the duties. Now the question was, could they use them effectively enough to actually get the job done?

In a few moments from now, they would certainly find out.

They had run through several equipment and job scenario drills in the past few months, gearing themselves up for the real deal.

But the real was at hand presently. Time to see if practice properly prepared for actual duty.

"Who's up for this?!" Cordann Blu asked his crew of Restwell cohorts, his tone full of gusto.

"We are!" the other three replied with vigor, holding their equipment a bit tighter.

Cordann held a vacuumater in front of him while Neff gripped a shockinater. Parn had possession of the webinater which left the fuminater in the tensed clutches of Morch. All carried a traunt scanner.

"Equipment check," Cordann ordered with officious barking. He hit the power switch on his weapon and it hummed to life as it should.

Neff hit his and it purred like a charm. "Yeeaahh, son," he added with fierce pride.

"There's that puppy," Parn said in the same tone as his powered properly.

Morch, however... "Aw, you piece of jiss..." He growled as his tool glitched and sputtered out. And frustratingly banged on it with his fist a few times hoping to jar it to proper functioning, but it wouldn't heed.

"You okay, Morch?" Cordann asked in concern.

"Fine," Morch spit out as he transitioned from fist bangs to out and out kneeling down and smacking the device on the hard ground. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

"Don't break it," Neff chided.

"I'm not..." Morch grunted. WHAM! WHAM! ...WHAM! He alternated sides to hit on the thing—WHAM! WHAM! CRACK! BONK! TINK! BAM!

And finally...power up...

Morch rose with his humming fuminater and finally boasted, "Yeeaahhh..."

Now they all turned to face their destination: a large house owned by a bio-chemistry specialist by the name of Doot.

Neff asked, "Does this Doot fella have a last name?"

Cordann answered earnestly, "No, as far as I know, it's just Doot."

Parn put in, "Doot...Dooter, Dootman..."

Morch elaborated, "Doot is moot..."

Parn again, "Don't shoot the Doot..."

"Someone do the Doot..."

"Dooter Rooter..."

"Doot-tololgy—"

"Are we gonna do this, or are we gonna stand here all day and insult our first paying customer's good name?" Cordann asked with annoyance and impatience.

"...Dootyshorts—" Parn let slip and giggled but tried his best to get it under wraps. "All right, I'm done."

Cordann rolled his eyes then said with as much conviction as his nervous being could muster, "All right, let's...approach..."

They held their positions for an instant longer, then they slowly trotted forth toward the front door of the house. A sensor alerted the occupant of the house that guests were at the door. A moment later, it was answered.

"Restwell?" Doot inquired as he stood inside the opened doorway and stared at the boys.

"That's us," Cordann replied with a bright face. "You have some nasty critters giving you some hassle?"

"Yes indeed," Doot said, "In the basement and running through the wall spaces."

"You hear and see 'em?"

"And see their droppings. It's getting to be a serious problem, especially with my work."

"Say no more, we're on it."

"Come in, please."

And so the boys entered. And embarked on their first assignment as the self employed representatives of Restwell.

Chapter 2

"See anything yet?" Cordann asked as he and the other boys searched the corners and crevices of Doot's expansive yet shadowy basement.

"Nothing," Neff replied.

"Me either," Parn echoed with a bit of deflation.

"Zippo," Morch gave flatly. "It's like they knew we were coming."

"Well of course they did," Neff added coarsely, "They heard us coming into the room, ya jiss scooper."

Morch jabbed his fuminater out toward Neff. "How'd you like this jammed up your jiss hole?"

"Boys!" Cordann blasted in a bit of a whispery wheeze. "A professional demeanor is key to our success here! If our customer heard us talking this way—"

"You're right, sorry," Neff amended apologetically.

"Sorry," Morch agreed. He turned to Neff with penitent eyes. "You're a master of the shockinater, Neff. I respect you."

Neff said in kind, "And you're a wiz with the fuminater, Morch. I respect you."

They nodded at each other in good faith. Parn smiled at the show of common comradery between his two friends.

But Cordann turned back around and rolled his eyes, thinking, these are my business partners. Soon he refocused on searching for a sign of the pests they had come to remove.

Parn commented, "Doot was right about the droppings. There's certainly plenty of those littered about."

Cordann asked, "Can you determine what critters there are from the droppings?"

"Aaahh...nodies, looks like...possibly some botters."

Nodies and botters, Cordann pondered and prepared his mind for what could happen. A nody was a particularly inhospitable and troublesome type of rodent with not one, not two, but three separate heads. Knock two out and the third one would keep the body going. And they were quick, not too easily trapped. Botters were a bit of a different story—they were bothersome to be sure; but they were also quite sensitive to light. Their four eyes needed the shadow to move around and do their damage. Deprive these little lizards of the dark and they become disoriented and mostly ineffective. Just watch out for their elongated tails—which acted like miniature whips! Not something you want to feel unless razor sharp pain is what you enjoy.

Something skittered, out of sight.

The boys tensed, aiming their weapons in the direction of the telltale sound.

Something else scampered in another direction, another darkened corner behind some crates. The boys quickly swung their aim that way. Still nothing visible for them to target.

"I think they're playing with us," Morch quickly got out.

"Look behind everything!" Cordann blasted. And all four did so hastily, careful not to damage anything.

Another whisk of a creature zoomed out of sight from the peripherals of the boys.

Into a vent in the lower portion of the wall.

"I'll wager they're all in that air shaft, hiding out!" Neff hollered as they turned to spot the vent.

"Well, we'll see about that," Cordann returned as he pulled from his belt pouch a tiny orb-like device. He quickly approached the grill of the vent, stood before it, and placed the orb inside the thick mesh. From there, the gadget lit up a red dot on its curvature, and rolled further into the shaft.

The thing was a trademark tool designed to flush out most critters from their dark, dank hiding spots—by rolling to their area of nesting and releasing a quite objectionable high-pitch sound. One that only the critters can hear.

It only took a moment of roll and search before the boys heard many screeching screams from deep within the vent. And scurrying. The scratching running sounds were coming closer and closer.

"Brace yourselves!" Cordann warned the boys, and they complied, tensing up their stance and weapons.

The nodies and botters shot forth from the wall and quickly dispersed to different hiding spots behind whatever sizeable object they could find.

But Cordann actually caught one dead on into his vacuumater and trapped it!

One down.

"Glare floods, all of you!" Cordann ordered. The four boys activated their blinding light rays hooked to their shoulder harnesses. "We can take out the botters first!"

With the powerful lights now acting as a new way to flush out at least the botters, the boys began to search out the critters from behind different things. Parn got two bots under a web from his webinater. He hollered to Cordann to suck them up; he rushed over and did it. Three down. Something like eight or nine to go! The nodies were scattering away from their botter counterparts, making for harder targets. Some were even shooting out right at the boys themselves, causing them to duck. Yet they were still making good time collecting the botters; shocking, webbing, and vacuuming the little buggers into permanent containment. Cordann moved over to the storage portable, hooked his vacuumater's barrel end to its umbilical unit, allowed it to join/open, and hit his switch to transfer the botters into the portable. Trapped and secured. Cordann unhooked then went about joining his friends in hunting down the pesky nodies.

But damn, the things were quick and aggressive. Just when they thought they had one cornered, two or three others would jump at them to distract—and the target would dash away to another hiding spot.

"That's it," Cordann announced in agitation. "Morch, what is this ceiling made of?"

Morch unlatched a metals determining scanner from his belt and did a probe of the ceiling structure. When the results displayed on his mini-monitor, he revealed, "It's made of curbidus metal, boss."

"All right, you boys know what to do. Hit your boots."

"Got it," the other boys acknowledged, and all four of them kneeled down to adjust their boots to be conducively magnetic to the ceiling's particular metal type.

Once done, they all sat down on the floor, shot their legs upward, then hit a button on their belts. And instantly their bodies rose up till they were all standing on the ceiling!

Now it was quite a bit easier to see all hiding spots of the nodies! The boys could even manage an arduous walk to bring themselves into even better vantage points.

The nodies did their best to try and evade or attack. But within minutes, it was over. And the nodies angrily joined their botters friends in the portable containment. All of the trapped critters viciously growled at their captors, staring them down through the thick glass with venom in their eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, nerk you, too," Neff retorted to their vengeful looks.

"Thank you, boys. I've credited your account. Wonderful job," Doot compliment with a smile and relief.

"Always at your service, professor," Cordann responded with his own jovial smile and casual salute.

Neff offered, "Are you sure you wouldn't like any hypnotherapy whatsoever?"

"Oh, no," Doot answered dismissively, pishawing the notion.

"You sure?" Neff pushed but politely.

"Positive, positive."

"All right, sir, then we shall bid you a fair and productive day," Cordann said and bowed slightly to show professional courtesy before he and the boys turned to leave.

But as they headed for the door...

"Wait..."

The four boys spun to face the professor with raised brows.

Doot continued, "...Actually...there is something..."

The boys had gathered and seated themselves in the professor's study. Doot, himself, was facing them in his favorite chair as he explained his crisis.

"You see, I have a bit of a...personal issue...well, it's rather embarrassing..."

"Please," Cordann assured, "Whatever you tell us will be in the strictest of confidence. We'll even put it in writing if need be."

Doot asked if they could and it was done.

Once that was accomplished, Doot finally revealed, "I...I have a...girl...that I'm thoroughly fascinated with..."

"Well all right, professor, good for you, sir," Parn congratulated.

"Thank you...thank you...She's a remarkable woman, she works with me at the laboratory. We connect so well with each other, and I can tell that she would like to take our association to a new plane, but..."

"...But?"

"But she owns a quite sizeable collection of dolls and, well..."

"You have a fear of dolls."

"Yes, a deftly fear of them, I'm embarrassed to say."

"Can you say why?"

"Well that's the major difficulty, I'm not sure why. My parents died when I was very young, so I was never ale to find out from them why this deep fear remains in me to this day."

"So you think if we help you remember your earliest childhood memories, you might be able to identify where the fear came from—and hopefully how to stop it?"

"Hopefully, yes. In fact, I'm desperate to know why, and if something can be done about it. I've met and been intimately associated with females before but...I really want to get it on with this one."

"Leave it in our capable hands, professor, we'll get to the bottom of things and you'll be holding..."

"Soota."

"...Soota in your arms with or without her dolls in no time. Neff?"

Neff came forth and knelt down in front of Doot, coming to eye level with him. "I want you to relax completely."

"Okay," Doot said.

"Breathe deep."

Doot did.

"Now breathe normal," Neff continued, "And let your mind free itself of all thoughts, concerns..."

Neff waited a brief moment to allow Doot the process of clearing his mind. "Now...I want you to envision that you are following me down a path. The path appears to have no end, but you trust me to follow along and that I know exactly where the path intends to take us. Close your eyes now."

Doot did so.

"We are walking at a very leisurely pace," Neff evenly continued, "there are no worries, no troubles, only our relaxing stroll along the path. It is daytime when we have started our walking, but as we continue on the seemingly endless path, dusk is setting in, the light of day is beginning to dim. It is becoming darker still until finally it has grown to pitch black night. There are no stars, no moon, nothing to light the heavy shadows now fallen on us. Now we can't even see the path that is before us, but we are still walking on it. And it is still taking us where we need to go...Professor, I want you to open your eyes..."

Doot did. But his eyes were unfocused, relaxed.

Neff continued, "...Professor, are we still walking the path in the dark?"

Flatly, lazily, Doot said, "...Yes."

The boys squeezed Neff's shoulders from behind him, a silent congratulation that he had successfully hypnotized their first customer.

Neff went on, "Now professor, even though it is total night around us, the path is going to become visible to us again...do you see the path now?"

"...Yes, I do," Doot responded.

"And do you see me in front of you?"

"Yes."

"Good...Our path is going to take a turn now...a turn into your past. We're going far now, past your earlier school years and into your earliest formative period. The time when your parents were still guiding you. Now professor, something happened in that time that was extremely frightening to you...Something that involved a doll...Can you tell me about this now?"

"...Yes."

"Please do so."

"I was two when I was given a certain present by my father. It was a Zoopala Doll from my favorite holoshow, Zoopala and Friends. I was thoroughly excited to receive this doll, I was jumping around with joy with my new gift. I had never been so happy in my life."

"So what happened then that year that was so terrifying to you, professor?"

"That very night, there was a storm, an ominious and frightening storm. It terrified me almost beyond reason. And I couldn't run to my parents for safety because they had gone out and left me with a sitter...a very cold and vengeful woman. I remember screaming when the lightening and thunder flashed and shook my room. And when it did, it cast bizarre shadows on my Zoopala Doll, it made it look like a horrible demon! Made me scream profusely. Before long the sitter came bursting into my room and hollering at me, Be silent! Stop screaming and crying or she was going to tell my parents that I was a bad, bad Dooters..."

Parn perked up visibly and looked at the others, as if to say, I pegged it! I was the one who guessed his pet name!

But soon, they all focused back on Doot as he described on, "...And then the sitter marched over to my Zoopala Doll and quickly picked it up. She stormed forth to stand over me in my bed and barked at me right as the lightening and thunder hit, 'Now take your stupid little doll and go to sleeeep!' The lightening cast the horrid shadows on my doll once more...and she had shoved the demonic thing right in my face...I screamed even more! The thunder was heard in my head as evil, soul shattering laughter!"

"Your greatest joy became your greatest fear, professor," Neff revealed.

"Yes...yes, it did..."

"But it was really the fault of the sitter, professor, don't you see? If she had been a caring and generous spirit, she would have come in to turn on the light and show you that your Zoopala Doll was nothing so demonic or frightening."

"...Yes...yes, that's true..."

"Professor?"

"Yes?"

"It's time to let go of your fear of Zoopala—and all dolls. The trauma is not with them, but with the sitter...and if she still lives, I strongly suggest that you meet with her to see if you can address your difficulty. And if she has passed, then I strongly recommend you making peace with her shortcomings. It will help you come a long way in eliminating your aversion to such a harmless object as a Zoopala and all other dolls. You will remember all of this as I bring you back along the path to the here and now."

"Yes," the professor concurred.

"Let's turn back on our path. As we are walking back, we are passing your growth through time...and the dark is fading to light, a day is dawning on us...Now professor, I want you to close your eyes for me..." Doot did so. "Do you still see the light of the brightening day?"

"Yes."

"Good...we have come to the end of the path, back to where we began...Open your eyes."

Doot did, and became more animate again, a normal functioning, cognizant individual. "Wow...I remember...I remember what happened...and who was responsible for fueling my deep fear..." Doot looked stunned, amazed. He looked at Neff and said, "Thank you for your work on me, boy. I'm impressed."

"So am I," Parn admitted, amazed his friend could actually pull it off. Morch secretly hit Parn in his side, Parn reacted with a jolted face of pain. "Owww..."

Cordann redirected with, "Once again, we're glad to be of service, professor. And we hope that your ladyfriend will be appreciative of it as well."

"I think she will be. Thank you again, boys. I will certainly call you again if I have any more problems...either with my house or my head."

And so there they were, the four boys of Restwell Mind and Pest Cleaners standing outside their first customer's home, staring at each other with somewhat nervous yet exhilarated eyes.

They had done it, completed their first job successfully, glowingly. Pride shown in their faces and postures.

Cordann announced, "This is it, boys, this is how it starts for us, do you feel it? This is how our successful business begins. Nothing will stop us now."

Chapter 3

"Those boys must be stopped!" Cordann Blu's father thundered to all the others in the room.

Caradeen was is name, and he was the chief engineer and CEO for Kymar Industries. Kymar mass produced household and business assistant androids—what are dubbed in some circles as "Ass. Andies." But don't let Caradeen hear you call them that.

The others Caradeen spoke to in such a course tone were the parents of the other boys who had joined Cordann on his bold new business venture.

Neff's Enzymian parents, hailing from the Andor system, Koleffekus and Stona felt compelled to be present at this emergency meeting. Leff, as he was called, dealt heavily in fuel production for the galaxy's transports. Leff agreed wholeheartedly with Caradeen's sentiments concerning the boys' career choice.

"I wholeheartedly agree with Caradeen's sentiments concerning the boys' career choice," Leff added.

"Well what do we do about it then?!" Smeldus blasted to the other parents in the meeting room. Smeldus was the governor of Keedo City on Sub Paxel—and Parn's father. Though Smeldus held the official title of governor, it was his wife, Ishtinx who truly governed Keedo.

"Here's an idea," Peesha spoke up with curtness to the others as she stood next to her lifemate, Excreesha. "Why don't we just tell our boys that they have to quit this nonsense. We are their parents, for Godsake."

"Yes," Excreesha chimed in, "They owe us."

"Oooohh surrrrre, that'll fly," Leff retorted sarcastically. "Good plan, Excreesh."

"She's Excreesha," Peesha raged, "I'm Peesha!"

"What's the difference, you're both the mommies," he pishawed.

"How's our male enhancement products working out for you, Leff?" Peesha shot back.

"Can we get back on the subject at hand, please?" Caradeen protested to redirect. "Let's not snipe pointlessly at each other. Our end goal is the same here. We want our children to carry on our hard earned legacies—which, I'm sure you would all agree, is not too much to ask."

"I would agree with the 'Eeshas on one account, those boys do owe us for all the sacrifices we've made for them," conceded Leff.

Smeldus chimed in, "Here, here. Ish and I used to have fun in life. But that ended with Parn's arrival."

Caradeen added, "I'm sure we can all remember that life used to be so much more worth living before our offspring came along, but we made our choices and we sucked it up and endured. And now it is time that our boys sucked it up, got real, and carried on our empires."

"Yes, but again, exactly how?"

"I will tell you how. By ensuring that they fail in all of their business dealings."

"Ah, I see..." Ishtinx said as she approached Caradeen and stared him down. "we use our resources to fake legitimate pest calls, but we rig the jobs with some of the nastiest critters imaginable."

"Precisely," Caradeen said with a smile. "Beasts that the boys couldn't possibly deal with."

"And the customers—who we will select, of course," added Smeldus, "—will act as irate and dissatisfied as possible..."

"And the boys will be disenchanted, crushed," Caradeen concluded. "And will give up this crazy notion of pest control...and hypnosis..." he ended with a sour tone.

"Can you imagine..." Excreesha lamented in disgust, "...sullying our good names with this vile profession—rooting around in basements and dusty attics, it's an insult!"

"It's scandalous!" Peesha echoed.

"Criminal!" Ishtinx belted.

"Well, not for long ladies...not for long," Caradeen assured with confidence. "By this time next week, we will have them right where we want them."

Chapter 4

Goldin Rambidou was indeed a very happy man. And why shouldn't he be? He was, after all, president of the whole universe. Or at least the part of it known as the Effen Galaxy. Spanning thirty-eight planets and a couple of supercool nebulas, Effen was a happening galaxy to be a part of.

And for the last thirty years, Goldin had overseen the regulation of it all. Proudly, judiciously...lasciviously. Unevenly, criminally, caustically, violently, cruelly, backwardsly...well, you get the general idea. Typical government practice. But at least Goldin was dedicated. He had no domesticated life to speak of; no wife or children, just the love of the job—and the love for the gross power he wielded over many worlds and peoples. Despite no family of his own, Goldin could hardly consider his existance to be wasted or meaningless. After all, he was ruler of the Effen Galaxy and his influence was felt throughout the various systems therein. Yes indeedily, Goldin was a content man.

Except when his power and position were under threat of weakening—or extinction altogether. Goldin had encountered this situation numerous times in his thirty year reign of Effen.

And unfortunately this kind of predicament had reared its rastard-ugly head once more.

There was a senator on the rise who proposed radical amendments to the Effen constitution. His name was Osis Binarian, a righteous and impassioned representative from Dooshlodia who was smooth talking his way through the ranks. He seemed incorruptible and completely honorable. Goldin despised him.

It appeared that one of Osis' proposals was to form a special task force to clamp down on the slave trade that plagued the Effen underworld sects.

Goldin was not a fan of slavery per se, but he realized that it was a necessary evil in order to keep the galaxy well financed...particularly in funding his scientific experiments. Goldin covertly had his science teams working on new chemical formulas to effectively control the minds of the senate members. Manipulate them into voting his way in important ratifications. Important to maintaining Goldin's power base at any rate.

Something had to be done about this idealistic and dangerously naïve new senator. Something permanent. Goldin knew that if he simply tried to smear the Dooshlodian's good name, create some trumped up scandal for Binarian, it may only delay trouble for Goldin's grand plans. He knew that politicians always had a nasty knack for bouncing back from bad press. No, something more drastic must be put into play.

But it must be done delicately, with supreme subterfuge, and with no trace of Goldin's administration being implicated by the Effen high courts.

And Goldin knew the right people to contact for this sort of intricate assignment. First would be his personal assistant—his pers. ass.—Snaris Umley. In the official Effen dictionary under sycophant, it says "see Snaris"—at least Goldin felt it should be. Snaris, as most knew, had his proverbial lips firmly glued to Goldin's rear. Anything that the president desired, Snaris made happen, gladly and without question.

The second person that would be contacted concerning the covert elimination would be a man who was an unofficial liaison in these touchy types of assignments: Gannik Butrillon. Gannik would then be tasked unofficially with hiring an experienced and clever assassin to carry out the deadly contract.

Usually that assassin came in the form of the most ruthless, precise, and cunning assassin in the Effen Galaxy: Putrak Alkak, or Putrak The Much Feared as he is known in the criminal underworld.

Putrak would receive the particulars, gather his tools of death, and the job would be completed. Period. Without fail.

And Goldin had the perfect venue in which to carry out the killing of Osis Binarian: the yearly Effen Galaxy Summit, where all delegates from thirty-eight worlds come together to discuss the current state of Effen. Osis was scheduled to speak, make a grand plea to the populace for grand change. But before Osis would begin his speech, he would suffer a "mysterious affliction" and die on the spot, in front of the masses. Where there would be little suspicion for foul play, no sniper's bullet to be traced to anyone or assassin to track down. Putrak was quite good at using tools that could end an individual and leave no trace as to the cause.

Sure, it might look like convenient timing that Osis would croak just before an important address to the Effen peoples. But these things happen, Goldin could always defend, life is unpredictable; and sometimes tragedy occurs when you least expect it.

Certainly, Goldin had been under scrutiny before for suspicious dealings and underhanded circumstances. But he had always weathered them with grace, charm, and toughness of resolve. He hadn't maintained his thirty year rule by being a lightweight pushover who was easily ruffled by scandal.

No, Goldin was confident that this current crisis would be resolved by the beginning of the summit. And he, the president of the whole Effen Galaxy, would continue being a very happy man.

Chapter 5

The prospective client opened the door to his humble abode on the planet Bormie and faced the four Restwell boys.

"Hi, you called about some pest critters in your home?" Cordann inquired of the homeowner.

"Ah yes," the proprietor concurred then offered, "Please come on in. I'm desperate to resolve this problem."

Cordann, Neff, Parn, and Morch entered the man's home and faced him for more specifics.

The owner went on, "They're rooting around in my basement, chewing up my power lines and destroying circuits and pipes. It's a real mess, do you think you could get them out for me?"

"Absolutely, sir. Leave it to us and we'll solve your pest problem in no time. Consider the job already done."

"Oh terrific, that's what I wanted to hear. This way, boys, to the lower level of the house." He guided them to the entrance of the basement stairway. "This is as far as I'd like to go. Critters creep me out."

"We'll take it from here, sir," Cordann assured. And he and the other three Restwell boys descended the stairs.

The owner closed the door behind them.

There was some light down below which allowed the boys a fall-free passage down the steps.

"It's good that he closed the door..." Morch rather nervously commented, "...right?"

"We don't want any critters escaping," Cordann assured.

"Makes sense." But Morch was still tense, feeling closed in.

They reached the basement and found that the area was vast and only sparsely littered with boxes or old items. There didn't appear to be any dust on any of them.

"New owner, I guess," Parn suggested.

"Yeah, doesn't have much," Neff added.

"Maybe he's a minimalist," Morch surmised.

"Or a Tupitarian. They're not allowed to have much."

"He doesn't look like a Tupitarian."

"They have a look?"

"They have a look. My uncle says they have a look."

"Which is what?"

"...They have a minimal look."

"You're an idiot. I'm going to shock you with this thing—"

"Boys. The job, remember?" Cordann stressed.

"You're right," Morch and Neff amended in unison and got focused on the job at hand.

A rattling noise was heard. But nothing was seen. The boys tensed, held their weapons firmer, for the ready. They looked about, trying to spot anything that might resemble a critter.

Suddenly, a whip-fast form on four legs sped by from behind two crates.

"Did you see that?!" Morch blurted.

"I saw it! I saw it!" Cordann rattled out quickly.

"What was it?! Did any of you get a good look at it?!" Morch hastily asked.

Too quick, they all responded back.

Another blur of movement came from behind shadowy items.

"There! That one...looked like a...like a rocky something..."

All four boys didn't like the sound of that. This sight was unexpected.

Parn's teeth began to chatter a bit in deep rooted fear.

"All right, tighten up, boys," Cordann barked, "We can do this."

All four braced themselves to focus on what was ahead.

But soon Parn's teeth resumed chattering.

"Parn—" Cordann began.

"Sorry," Parn said nervously, "Can't help it, it was a reckadeck, a reckadeck—"

"We don't know that for sure," Morch sobered.

"What other critter has rock-like skin?!"

"Once we get a better look—"

Suddenly, a cragged and orbish projectile, gray and hardened, rocketed straight at the boys!

"DUCK!" Neff squealed in an instant—and the boys did so in the split-second nick of time!

The stony ball shot over and past them to crash into the wall beyond. It rebounded to the floor, uncoiled itself to a four-legged, rocky-skinned nightmare, then zipped away to disappear behind a crate.

"Was that close enough for you?!" Parn stabbed at Neff.

Penitent, Neff uttered, "...Yeah...close enough...Reckadeck, confirmed."

They all cautiously rose again, keeping a sharp eye on the crate.

Something quickly skittered behind them.

They whipped about to track the source.

From behind another crate, a spiky little devil peered its glowing blue eyes out to stare at the boys with venom.

"Aaaaand that's a crondite," Neff added with false calm.

"What the hell is it doing here?!" Parn asked in high pitch fear.

"What the hell is a reckadeck doing here?!"

"All good questions for another time boys," Cordann said, "But right now..."

Without warning from behind another crate, a different, more indefinable shape catapulted itself right at the boys, causing them to madly duck down once more. They spun about to catch the wobbly, rippling mass disappear behind another pristine crate.

"Nerk me with a traunt detector..." Morch uttered, "...that was a klooner!"

Klooners. One of the most troublesome and destructive creatures in existence. They exclusively fed off circuitry, powerlines, and coolant. And they couldn't easily be caught, because of their unique ability to change at will from solid to liquid form. Try webinating one of those and see where it gets you.

Crondites and reckadecks weren't much better. Crondies were super-quick reptilians with spiky skin and knife-like claws—and, oh yeah, a propensity for hyper-rage. Reckies were quite dodgy to catch in their own right in that, in addition to being able to curl up and throw themselves through the air like hardened boulders, they could split into four or five parts of themselves to confuse predators.

The boys simply weren't set up for these extreme cases—and for good reason, of which they'll explain in a bit.

"Tighten up!" Cordann snapped, "we're doing this, dammit!"

"We are?" Parn fearfully asked.

Wooshes!—two reckadecks cannoned themselves out from two far apart crates and aimed at the boys head on!

Cordann attempted to whip-position his vacuumater to catch one of the living boulders as it hurdled at him. But it was too quick and the thing ricocheted off the end of the weapon's barrel. It bounced off the ceiling and fast diagonaled down to hide behind another crate.

At the same time, the other projectile split into four different parts and snap-attached themselves to Neff's shockinater. Extremely flustered, Neff attempted to shake off the four rocky leeches to his weapon—especially since they seemed to be biting into its construction, tearing at it. "Ah nerk! Get off! Get off!" His shaking wasn't doing any good.

Cordann and Morch rushed to him to try and shock and vacuum the little bugger(s), but then two crondites leaped out and attacked them! The creatures latched on, causing the boys to jerk and flail, stagger off in odd stances and steps. Both cursed wildly in shock and anger.

Parn looked around in a mad scan to see if something might pop out at him as well. Nothing was at the moment—so he desperately attempted to aim webs at the crondies clinging and clawing at his two friends. Flecks of their blood were now flying! They hollered in their struggle. Parn shot out webs but kept missing.

Meanwhile, Neff ran to a wall to try and slam his reckadeck-infested shockinater against its hard surface. But it was to no avail, the individual pieces of the creature held firm to the damaged device. And the banging was only hurting matters for his poor weapon. "Get oooooff!"

As Parn continued to expend badly aimed webs at his partners, he heard a new disturbing sound behind him...

...and spun about just in time to see a coagulating, brownish mass fly straight at him! As it did, he managed to hysterically wail, "MOMMIES?!" And then it hit—and engulfed him! His webinater dropped to the floor with loud clacking sounds.

Neff saw what was happening to his companions, and abandoned his weapon to try and firstly aid Cordann and Morch, still battling the vicious crondites. He grabbed Morch's shockinater from his grasp and did his best to correctly aim the shocks at the squirming critters. Yet, from behind, another reckie rockish orb flew out to beam him on the shoulder before it soared on and out of sight. He winced and groaned in sharp pain, but kept his grip on the shockinater. After a few mistaken shock-jabs—which further agonized his two assaulted friends—Neff finally met his intended targets. And the crondites squealingly dismounted to shoot away and across the room. But they didn't hide. They speedily spun into attack stances, ready to strike again if the opportunity was ripe.

"Nerk this, let's get out of here!" Neff ground out to the other two.

"What about him?!" Morch said of Parn. The poor boy was covered in a liquidy brown... and it was threatening to close over his mouth and nose! His fear was mounting.

"Drop all weapons," Cordann ordered, "now."

"You mean..." Morch hazarded.

"Yeah, leave 'em. I don't think we get to walk out of here otherwise."

"I bet that thing would love to eat up all the power in them... All right. Neff?"

Neff slowly lowered the shockinater while Cordann did the same with his vacuumater.

And in reaction, the klooner released itself of Parn's body and oozed off to the side, waited.

Cautiously, the four boys made for the stairs, their arms up to show no funny biz was in the works. The critters watched their every move, ready to resume the siege if necessary.

The boys reached the door, felt for it, opened it, passed through—still eyeing their superior attackers with silent dread—and slammed the door shut as quickly as possible as soon as all were clear on the other side.

"This is absolutely unacceptable!" the owner blasted at the boys as they stood outside the front door. The owner was inside and facing them at the doorway. "I thought I was hiring professionals but you four are just third rate hacks! You might as well pack up your business and run home to your mommies! I'm going to tell everyone how you botched this job! Make bet on it!"

"We're so sorry, sir, we came up against some unexpected—" Cordann tried.

"Sorry?! Never in my life have I seen such unprofessionalism! Whatever it takes to make it in this job you four certainly don't have it! Now good day to you! And never darken my door again!"

The owner whooshed the door shut and left the boys to their dejection. A sharp, cold wind blew at them causing their eyes to bat repeatedly.

Neff uttered, "He seemed minorly dissatisfied with the result of our work."

Parn retorted, "Understatement of the year, Nerkhead."

"Nerk you very much, please."

"I really think we're pretty much dead in the water now, boys," Morch assessed with no enthusiasm.

"He's just upset," Cordann tried to rationalize, "He'll calm down and realize that he's overblown the situation...He wouldn't really call people to tell them we're hacks...Not really..."

"Don't bet on it," Morch depressively answered.

And all four boys slowly turned together and walked away from their first professional failure.

Chapter 6

Osis Binarian had plans, people. Plans to clean up the galaxy. His mother had been a slave for the Bautya Soldya tribe operating out of the Scription Con region. But she earned her way out of the servitude—at least for the fate of Osis following in her footsteps. "Change the system," were her dying words to the grieving son. And that's exactly what Osis planned to do. He had sworn it to his mother before her light went out for good.

His road was long and hard in rising to the ranks of senator for Getalon, Dooshlodia. And it took some much pained compromises to reach his current status.

But things were falling into place now, and the summit was only a few days away. Almost time to plead his case, his grand plan to abolish slavery while still keeping the economic strength that will float the Effen "boat."

He knew that slave traders were big business throughout certain regions of the galaxy. And that a total collapse of this unofficial galactic institution would be felt in may official pockets. That is why Osis searched long and hard with his financial planners to enact ways to redirect trade and commerce toward less morally and physically heinous business practices.

But he knew it wouldn't be easy convincing the galactic conglomerates, the "tribes," to change their time honored and ego pleasing—megalomaniacal—tradition of owning and selling living souls. Knew that some if not most of those slave moguls were proud of their feared and revered positions. Power and sadism were intoxicating psychological drugs to the severely sociopathic.

And Osis also knew that these powerful, formidable entities might try and find a clever, untraceable way to stop him from reordering the galactic trades.

Might even try to end him.

But Osis couldn't concern himself too much with that. He had to place his faith in his security detail that they knew their jobs well enough. That they wouldn't be bought out to betray Osis to his ultimate demise. Nothing could be fully controlled anyway, he knew. If it happened, it happened. He had sworn to his mother that he would take this path, and there was simply no going back.

Chapter 7

Gannik Butrillon was something of an anomaly within the political structure of the Effen galactic bureaucracy. He was not on any official payroll for any governmental entity, but he was frequently employed by many of them in the hierarchical sects.

He was an independent liaison for lack of a better title and had no real plans to become anything else. If someone from the political realm or corporate sectors needed a specific and clearly "off the books" task performed, then Gannik would be the man to find the right person for the job.

Officially he held the vague title of intermediary ambassador interim—a back-up diplomat for any system in need of one.

He was well versed in the customs of any of the Effen worlds and could easily step in for any worldly ambassador. But it was his unofficial duties that brought him real fortune and infamy.

And the attraction of many a female attention. Gannik was clearly an ambassador with the ladies, charming and bedding numerous different alien species enamored of his money and looks.

He even had himself a few steady attachments, always finessing his way out of any of these prospects from knowing each other's existence of course.

He was a charmer, a debonair socialite, a scoundrel with highly questionable moral fiber. Perfect for the governmental work he truly performed.

And he would do so once again as he was to meet with Goldin's right hand man, Snaris, for another unsanctioned assignment.

The meeting was to take place where it always did—aboard Gannik's own space freighter, The Piercer, in a remote part of space. Where no one would be bothering the covert precedings.

"Snaris," Gannik greeted Goldin's pers. ass. as he stepped aboard The Piercer from his own ship.

"How're the girls, Gan?" Snaris returned as he came forth to stand before the womanizer.

"Same as always, blind and willing."

They both grinned.

"How is Goldin?" Gannik asked to start things off.

"Good but concerned," Snaris replied with anxious eyes.

"He should be. That Osis character should ruffle some major feathers with his summit proposals."

"Well, not necessarily...not if we can conduct a little of our usual arrangement."

"Of course. Who would you like to tap for this? Putrak?"

"If he's available naturally."

"I'll look into it. If not I'll make the necessary inquiries for a viable alternative."

"Must happen just before the good senator is ready to give his speech before the entire summit."

Gannik smiled knowingly. "We want to send a particular message then?"

"Without arousing authoritative suspicion naturally."

"Naturally. Heart failure?"

"A coronary episode seems the preferred method, as long as it's—"

"Untraceable back to you or the Effen powers that be, I know, I know...Very well then. My usual fee is attached, any additional fees I'll—"

"You'll contact me. Naturally."

They shook hands formally then turned away to head off in different directions, Gannik to his personal room and Snaris back to his own vessel.

"Say hello to Goldin for me," Gannik left with.

"Will do," Snaris absently replied.

Chapter 8

On board their own personal and business freighter, The Morchmobile, the four boys of the now apparently defunct Restwell company slumped in chairs in the cluttered main hold.

Neff held a back-up shockinater in his hands and looked lamentfully at its shape as it rested on his lap. "I'm really gonna miss zapping critters with you."

"I don't believe this," Cordann ruminated in reflection of their efforts. "We were doing so good at first...What the hell were those things doing on that planet anyway?!"

"Exactly," Morch agreed with frustration. "Those three creatures are indigenous of one planet and one planet only—Baxillion. Which is farrr from where we just were—"

"I know, I know, it doesn't make any sense..."

"Could somebody have imported them?" Parn suggested anxiously.

"Anybody who imports them," Neff answered, "would know not to ever let them out of tight and regulated containment."

"Maybe somebody crashed and the little rastards got free to roam."

"But why would they all hole up in one house?"

"None of that matters now," Cordann brought the boys back to the current predicament. "We're dead in the water and we know it...Rest in peace, Restwell."

Suddenly the communicator panel pinged, and Morch went over to answer the call. "Morch—er, Restw...Morch."

"Is this Restwell Mind and Pest?" a pleasant and upbeat female's voice came through the comm speaker.

Morch was caught off guard. "Uh...yeah, this is us—we—them, this is Restwell," he stammered with cautious optimism.

"Yeah, um, hi...I need some help with some pesties in my apartment..."

"...Um, okay...could you hold for a second?"

"Sure."

"Okay, just one second." And Morch put the comm on hold while he whipped about and faced the others. "Well, guys, whaddya say? One last gig?"

The other three looked at each other with considering stares, seeing what the other thought with their eyes, expressions, shrugs.

Sure, why not, they all paraphrased to Morch, and he swung back to re-up the comm feed. "Hi, thanks for waiting. What's your name and location?" he asked the girl.

She replied "Yeah, my name is Hesha, I'm on Ershan, can you make it out this way?"

"Absolutely. Do you know what kind of critters you're dealing with?"

"Oh. Yes. Botters. Six or seven of them. I think."

"Good, okay. Give us a few hours and we'll be there."

"Okay."

"Bye now."

"Bye."

And Morch ended the transmission. "She sounds nice."

"Wonder if she looks nice too," Parn added.

Cordann enforced however, "Whether she is or not, you will not hit on her. She is a client and we will treat her as such, all right? Even if she is our last hurrah for Restwell. Let's at least go out as professionals with a little bit of dignity."

"Did we have that to begin with?" Neff mused to others.

Chapter 9

The Morchmobile landed safely on the Ershan metered parking strip and the boys departed with equipment in tow. Within another thirty minutes they reached Hesha's apartment and rang the doorbell. The front door slid aside to reveal a young girl Ershanian with a waify frame and a pleasant face. She looked to be early twenties.

"We're from Restwell, ma'am," Cordann announced to her.

"Yes, hello," the young woman greeted. "I'm Hesha, I called you guys. Come in."

"Thank you, ma'am." The boys entered.

Once inside Hesha asked, "Do you guys wants some coffee or something before you start?"

"No thank you, ma'am. Can you tell us where you're having the problem?"

"Sure, sure. There's a few hidden in my bedroom closet—"

Parn gasped a bit at the mention of my bedroom—and Cordann bumped him: keep it together! We're professionals not schoolboys!

"Is he okay?" Hesha asked of Parn.

"He's fine, bit of an asthma problem," Cordann covered.

"Oh...Um, one's hiding under my bed—"

Again Parn gasped.

"Oh, you poor thing," Hesha said to him with a sorrowful tone.

"He's fine," Cordann said again. "Please continue."

"Some are crawling around my air vents, and one is in my refrigerator currently eating all my food. Seems to really like my cherry pie."

The boys expectantly glanced at Parn...who looked back at them, baffled. They looked away while rolling their eyes.

Cordann brought the focus back to the job with, "Okay, Hesha, if you want to remain in the living room away from the pest zones, we'll conduct our sweeps. Sound good?"

"Sounds good," she responded and went for her sofa, while the boys headed first for the kitchen section.

A half hour later, the job was complete, and the boys stood before Hesha, their containment units full with every botter that had infested the apartment. Hesha stood facing them with grateful eyes and a pleasant smile. "Well thank you so much, guys, I feel much more at ease now."

"Think nothing of it, ma'am, we were happy to be of service," Cordann offered with his own pleasant grin.

"How much does it come to?" she asked though looked away nervously, blinking.

"Well...I suppose that depends." He glanced at Neff.

Neff was on. "Hesha, as you might know, we also offer a psycho-subconcious cleaning of house as it were. Would you for any reason require some hypnotherapy?"

Hesha looked off, eyes loaded. "Ummm..."

All were seated now in Hesha's living room. All except Neff who was kneeling before Hesha in preparation for his therapy of the mind.

"I've been having these increasingly disturbing nightmares," Hesha announced to the boys. "And something within me tells me that they're more than just dreams. I can't explain how I know, I just..."

"What are the dreams," Neff asked, "can you describe them for me?"

"Sure. There was one where I'm drowning in a lake made of fuel, ship fuel, I can actually smell it. I'm trying to swim to shore but it's like I'm stuck in place...and standing at the edge of the land near the lake is a man, a very powerful man. But he's grayed out...and in his hands is a lit match that he seems ready to throw into the lake."

"Does he do it?"

"Well, it's like if I try to make out his face, try to look past the grayness, he moves his hand out more, like he's signaling don't try and look or I'll actually throw the match."

"Interesting..."

"Yeah...And then there's one where this, like, weird robotic device is chasing me through a business or government building hallway. It's got a probe arm and an arm with a long sharp hypodermic needle. And these black beetle eyes with one red glowing eye in the center. And no matter how much I run, how fast I run, I can't get away from it. And it's like the thing wants to strip me of my soul...yet watch after me at the same time, protect me...It's like it's trying to be some sort of bizarre, toxic father figure or something...Is this sounding way too freaky or...?"

"Well it's certainly interesting and might be extremely helpful in what we need to do for you. Now Hesha, I want you to do something for me—"

"Also I'm having trouble with my omaxes," Hesha blurted out rather quickly, nervously.

Parn gasped—as if he really did have an asthma problem, clipped and wheezing.

Silence tensed the room for a second or two.

Then Neff started up abruptly, "Weee can see about-about...seeing if that's a psych thing too, sure...Now let's go ahead and clear out those thoughts, Hesha."

She visibly relaxed, became still. And Neff ran through the hypnotizing procedure, the whole "walk" down the path of the mind that appeared to have no end. Until Neff would instruct her to take a turn down a path of the subconscious, one that appeared to cause her confusion and distress.

"She's blocked, guys," Neff whispered to the boys. "There's something that's been buried too deep for some reason. It's almost like it's been buried on purpose because, if you've noticed, we've only gone back a short distance in her subconscious. This is a recent wall put up in her mind. She, uh, she might possibly be disturbed." He said the last part with wide eyes.

"You mean split personality maybe?" Parn asked with strange glee.

"Possibly," Neff answered with equal giddiness of fascination.

"Neff..." Cordann snap whispered.

"Right, you're right, sorry, sorry, sorry," Neff contrited hurriedly.

"Can you get through the wall?" Morch brought back the point.

"I think so but it's gonna take some tricky. I'm gonna have to figure out what's keeping the wall up, if there's some sort of trigger maybe that will bring the wall down. But...it requires a kind of underhanded move on my part."

"Which is?"

"I'll have to insert myself as a trusted friend of hers—trick her mind into thinking that she's known me a long time, and can confide anything in me. If that happens her subconscious may be able to reveal the trigger that brings down the barrier. Hopefully that will unlock the reason for her dreams."

Now there was silence as the boys pondered whether or not they should go that far to help a client—particularly, for all the boys knew, their very last client as Restwell. Cordann had wanted the dignity factor to remain in play. But how should that dignity take shape? As the boys avoiding a ruse to achieve the desired psych alleviation, or actually accomplishing the task they promised their client?

"Cordann, what do you think?" Morch asked.

Cordann took in a deep breath, let it out, then said, "Okay—but once the barrier's down and you've helped her I want the suggestion of longtime friendship taken away again."

"Can do," Neff assured with thumbs up hand gestures, and he turned back to Hesha with a normal volume of voice again. "Now Hesha, we're going to take a turn away from where we are now, and return to the path we were on. We're doing it now."

"Okay," Hesha droned.

"We've returned to our path and we're proceeding further along it."

"Yes."

Neff guided her further down the "mental" path to her more formative years. And cleverly inserted himself into those crucial events, the benchmarks of her cognitive development, and all that crap. He would say to her as they explored these times, "I was there too, it was important for both of us, it meant so much to our lives" and "We grew to trust one another like very few others." With each neural avenue explored and charted Neff would cap the departure with, "We could always count on each other."

Now he brought her back along the path, to quite recently in her subconscious memories, to the barrier. "Hesha, my good and trusted friend, do you trust me as well?"

"You know I do," Hesha replied.

"I'm glad, I'm glad that we've faced so much together and kept our faith in one another."

She smiled. "Me too."

"And I'm glad that we're going to face this new challenge together."

"So am I."

"And we can do it...if you tell me how to bring down the barrier we now face."

"...I was told not to, Neff."

Neff swung a troubled look of concern at the boys. They mirrored it back to him. They held the stares for a tense moment, then Neff turned back to Hesha and tried, "Who told you not to?"

"...I can't remember."

Neff thought about pressing her for an answer better than that, but realized he might have to go deep down again into Hesha's subconscious to find the name. And it might not be too important anyway...if he could still get the proper key word phrase to bring down the mental wall... "Well, let's not worry about that, Hesh, let's just concentrate on getting the barrier taken away. I think if we do then we will solve the problem of your nightmares. You and I so desperately want that."

"But I was told—"

"I know, I know, hon, but it's me we're talking here..."

"...You're right, I'm sorry..."

"It's okay, I know that you're nervous but it's going to be all right. Whatever's ahead we'll face it together, I got your back."

"...Okay...The key word is 'stroker ace'...but you have to say it for it to work, Neff."

"Stroker ace."

Hesha was silent, unchanging for a brief moment...and then her expression changed.

And not for the better.

"Hesha..." Neff tried in concern, "Hesha, what do you see?"

"...I see...something horrible...something that will affect everyone..."

"Tell me, Hesha, you can trust me."

Her expression darkened further. "...I see computer holographic files...official Effen governmental files...They're about recent and future initiatives...One involves the funneling of funds from illegal slave trades into covert government and military projects..."

Cordann was shocked, terrified—as were the other boys. He said in a haze of fear, "...Shut it down, Neff..."

"Then there's the file on the initiative to create a team of scientists that will invent ways to influence the legislative bodies to become more swayed and controlled by President Rambidou..." Hesha raged on in a bit of hysteria.

Cordann reached forth and grabbed Neff to pull him backward with haste. He whispered with grit, "Shut it down, Neff, now!"

Neff quickly stammered a response, "All right, all right..." He broke from Cordann's grasp and focused on Hesha again. "Hesha—"

"Also funded by the slave trade." Hesha finished.

"Hesh—"

"I wasn't supposed to see these things, Neff..."

"Hesha—"

"I came home to my father's early and stumbled upon the open files! I wanted to leave before anyone knew—"

"Hesha, hon, stop—"

"But my father and his boss Neldon discovered me—!"

"Hesha!"

"OH NO!" she shrieked—and something must have overloaded in her, because she seized up, drawing in a gasping and deep breath.

And then she collapsed, unconscious. She almost fell limp to the floor but Neff caught her in time, and held the ragdoll that was now Hesha. Her mouth lulled open.

"Ho-ly nerk..." Parn uttered in shock.

"Hesh...Hesh!" Neff tried but she wouldn't stir.

"Whadda we do?" Parn asked in tense fear. "Cordann, Morch, whadda we do?"

Ignoring Parn, Cordann pressed Neff, "What happened to her, Neff, do you know?!"

"She appears to have had a mental break," Neff surmised nervously. "Her senses spiked somehow and her system caused her to shut down...This is bad, I think we should get out of here—"

"You can't just leave her like this, Neff," Morch hounded. "What if she's permanently hypnotized or nerked in the head as a result of this—"

"Would you like to risk someone finding out what we now know?! Her place could be bugged for all we know! There could be a hidden holocam on us all right now!"

"Oh, if that's so then how would bailing out of here right now not clue them in to who we are and what we already know...?"

Neff froze for a second, realizing that Morch was completely right. "...All right, we tear this place apart and find every device—"

"You can't be serious! You're gonna tear this girl's apartment up, causing property damage, and try to locate possible bugging devices that likely have already transmitted what has just happened here..."

Stumped again, Neff paused wide-eyed then blasted, "Nerk! Nerk me, we're nerked!"

But then Cordann sobered the room with, "All right, calm down for a second and let's think this through for a moment...I think we're perhaps getting a bit too paranoid here. Now if someone had been listening to us, don't you think they would have shown up by now? I mean at the first hint of hypnosis being done someone would have been alerted, right? Also we did a pretty good sweep of this place, I think we would have come across something out of the ordinary."

"Hey yeah...right," Parn realized, agreed.

"...I guess so...yeah, that probably makes sense..." Morch tentatively conceded. "...but now again we can't just leave her like this."

"We'll check in on her tomorrow on the holo," Cordann offered, "and if she's still not up and doing fine then we'll come back and see what can be done. We might even have to put that barrier back up if she still remembers everything. You can do that, right, Neff?"

Nervously, Neff said, "I sure hope so. This whole thing is scaring me, let's just go now."

And exactly that's what they did, locking the place up so that no one else could disturb the catatonic girl.

Chapter 10

Gannik stepped into the bar located on the outskirts of Feeler City. The place was called Hitter's Row, a popular dive for some of the seediest beings imaginable; ones who frequently want to hide out on the out-of-the-way planet of Nocheck.

Typically, Gannik preferred to avoid such disreputable establishments, but this visit was necessary in order to make contact with the man who would carry out Goldin's unofficial contract.

And Putrak The Much Feared, as they called him, would only meet here at Hitter's Row to receive his kill orders.

He preferred this because he knew that the patrons and staff of Hitter's couldn't care less what deal or contract was made. So long as they could conduct their own business without any hassle—or simply drink themselves into oblivion without hindrance.

"Gannik," Putrak greeted the liaison as he sat beside the seasoned and middle-aged assassin. They were in a booth which offered a bit more seclusion, privacy.

"Putrak," Gannik returned. "How goes the 'feared in the muchly' business?"

Putrak faked a small laugh then replied, "What have you got for me, Nikky?"

"You know I hate it when you call me that."

"I certainly do. What's the job?"

"Osis Binarian. Know of him?"

"Dooshlodian Senator that's making some noise in the sectors. Looks like too much noise now, apparently."

"He's ruffling the wrong feathers for sure."

"How and when?"

"'How' would be whatever subtle and untraceable way you can perform. 'When' would be just before he gives his speech at the annual summit. We want to send a message without it being too over the head."

"You government types crack me up. You think taking down one revolutionary crackpot will stop the other crackpots?"

"You let us worry about the politics. All you need to do is focus on the job. Study Osis and his team—"

"Through and through, I know the drill. It'll be squared away by the time of the hit."

"That's why we come to you."

"Exactly. Oh and don't worry about me and my opinion of your tactics. Your politics are what keep me in business."

"Me as well," Gannik concurred with a grin.

Chapter 11

Hesha awoke three hours after the boys had vacated her apartment, and found that she had a smarting headache. She went into the bathroom and found a sprayer to administer through her ear. The chemical spray worked its way through the ear canal and into her grey matter. Within ten minutes she was feeling better, but she was disturbed greatly by what she now remembered about her father's political dealings.

How could her father, who had been such a stand-up parental figure to Hesha throughout her entire life, possibly involve himself in these kinds of activities. The slave trade, the controlling of legislature...What was her father thinking?

It supremely gnawed at her that she could be related to such an underhanded individual, someone who participated in the gross subjugation of so many souls. She now wished that she had that memory cap back in place, and that she had just let those Restwell boys clean her apartment, and not tinkered with her mind.

And where were those boys? Where was Neff, her good and trusted friend? Wouldn't he at least stick around to see that she woke up all right and safe?

What a nerker, she thought. She would have to have a serious talk with him about what friends did for one another in times of crisis!

Well she had other friends, dammit, ones that would help her out, give her good advice...

...possibly hide her if it came to it.

Paranoia was certainly setting in within her mind. And prompting her to make contact with such reliable friends as soon as possible.

She hit the holophone and connected with one of those friends, Urvo Shoke. He and his buddies frequently hid out in the Neb Nebula, at the Secret Station...or as those in the know called it, "The Secretion."

"Hesh!" Urvo the Micklodian greeted her through the holo image. "What's up, Goo Goo? Where ya been?"

"Busy with school and work," Hesha replied evenly.

"Augh, brutal..."

"You in the Neb right now?"

"You on the secure net?"

"Yeah."

"Then yeah, I'm here with the mates. Why, you wanna come viz? We'd love to see ya!"

"I'm thinking yeah," she said with tension in her tone, eyes.

"Oo, that didn't sound too rainbow. Is there something going on, G-G?"

"...Okay, since this is on the secure channel, I'm gonna tell you...My father is into some serious shart, Urv."

"Googer, I'm so sorry..."

"It's so bad. Do you think I can come and hang with you guys in the Neb for a bit; get my head together?"

"Abso, girly, get your jass out here, pront."

"Great, I'll see you soon."

She disconnected the holo transmission and got up to pack with haste.

Much later she'll have regretted making that call—for the holotrans she thought was hacker secure turned out to be not so ironclad untraceable. In fact this happen to be one of the covert initiatives of Goldin's that Hesha unfortunately didn't see: a new team of slave trader funded hackers to combat pirate transmissions.

As it happened, Cordann was actually right in his assessment of their apartment sweep. They would have found any listening or video "bugs" if there had been any to find. But Goldin and his people found it unnecessary to plant these devices as they were confident in their hypnotist's abilities to cap memories. They knew, of course, of the possible nightmare side effects, but none anticipated the subject ever perceiving it as anything other than stress related psychosis.

And certainly they didn't anticipate anyone ever combining the professions of pest cleaning and hypnotherapy.

But it was no matter, for the secret team of anti-hackers had broken Hesha's code and monitored her holo with Urvo. A strike team was sent to her apartment but she was already gone by the time they arrived.

And Hesha had used cash to hire an independent freighter to transport her to the Neb Nebula.

But she would be found, of course. Whether en route or at the "Secretion." Putrak would be notified as soon as possible, given the extra assignment by Gannik to track down Hesha and find a way to recap her potentially scandal-causing memory. But if that couldn't be achieved for some reason, if the memory couldn't be buried once more, then Putrak would have to do what he does best.

Terminate.

Chapter 12

Cordann decided not to wait a day to have the boys contact Hesha. Instead it only took six hours before he hit Morch up to connect a holotrans to her apartment. But, of course, she had long since vacated and the transmission went unanswered. Which didn't worry them in the extreme—Hesha could simply still be asleep. But it did trouble them that she would be out of it for this long.

Unfortunately for the boys, the time of their call just happened to coincide with the arrival and infiltration of the strike team into Hesha's apartment. The team observed the holo number used by Morch's ship on Hesha's holotrans display. And after an info search on their number it was determined to be used as the official Retswell call code. Restwell Mind and Pest. Now it was falling into place for the government operatives.

And what Hesha now remembered was what the employees of Retswell now more than likely knew as well.

So now Gannik was charged with a third assignment to delegate. But he couldn't charge Putrak with three hits at roughly the same time. He would have to call in a back-up assassin or assassins to take care of the Restwell problem.

But who could he get that was as efficient as Putrak...?

Well...no one really, Gannik had to admit to himself. He would just have to make do with what was available.

Although one possibility proved intriguing to Gannik after studying the four employees of Retswell. Of the four boys, Cordann's family proved to have two immediate individuals who could be perfect for the task at hand. Cordann's two twin brothers.

Morski and Korski were a few years younger than their industrious brother. But that didn't mean they weren't opportunists in their own right. And they saw big money in the contract killing business...as long as they could keep family and friends from discovering their chosen trade.

Perhaps the twins might relish the opportunity to take out their dear brother, provided they carried a big enough grudge against Cordann. Of course it could be the other way around entirely; they could love their brother intensely and never dream of taking on a job to eliminate a precious family member...

Gannik, however, was too intrigued, and decided he would find out one way or the other. If it turned out that they were interested in the job, terrific. It would show the twins as true professionals, unfettered by personal bias. But if not, and the twins wanted to alert the brother and his Restwell cohorts, well...that could prove to be a volatile situation. Gannik would have to use a little know device that, when directed a certain way, could put a person out for a few hours. And make his escape.

But Gannik had it in mind that he could possibly word things just right so that it stayed of a hypothetical, non-specific nature while broaching the subject to the twins.

And after some extensive background checks on the twins detailing their known relationship with their siblings, there seemed to be no great love flowing between the brother assassins and the other Blu offspring.

Still...

Gannik had to admit this was getting his blood flowing. Finally a bit of mystery involved in the job.
Chapter 13

"Boys, I'm worried," Cordann announced to the others. "I vote we go back to Hesha's and see if she's okay."

"Truth be told, guys," Parn admitted, "I'm a little too freaked to go back there, especially with what we now know."

"You're a straight coward then," Morch accused of his friend. "She's a client of ours and we have a responsibility to see her right!"

"Best I remember we fulfilled our contractual duties to her. We cleaned her house and we figured out what was causing her nightmares," Parn defended. "What do we owe her? In fact she owes us, she didn't even pay up for services rendered, now did she?"

"So you don't think it might be a good idea for us to go by and check to see that she has recovered from what our 'services rendered' have done to her?!"

"What I did to her..." Neff reminded the others in a haze of regret.

"Dammit, Cordann," Parn shot at his friend, "you see where your job pride has gotten us?!"

"Look, listen," Cordann said with control, "we're all a little on edge, this is something that we didn't count on...But we can still work through this if we're smart about it. I say we go back to her place but be extremely cautious on approach. Let's get our infrareds and scope out the joint from a distance, see if anyone is stirring inside." Morch was nodding slowly, motioning his agreement with the plan. Cordann went on, "If it's just one heat signature and it's moving, then we proceed to making contact. If it's more than one or none at all, then we'll have to decide what to do from there. Okay?"

Nervously the others nodded.

Friends, thought Cordann. Sometimes...

Back on Hesha's world, and fairly close to her apartment, the boys were mostly concealed behind a structure post as they scoped out the place.

"Infrareds up," Cordann ordered and they all activated their units strapped to their foreheads. Once working they positioned the devices over their eyes. Through the infrared filters they scanned the whole of Hesha's apartment.

So far nothing showed up as a heat signature.

"Well, that settles it," Cordann spoke up, "no one's home."

Parn asked, "What now?"

"Now we go," Cordann said. "Obviously she's out somewhere which means she woke up and is okay. Time to head back."

"So we're not even going to get paid?"

"We'll bill her later. Come on, let's plow—"

"I just got a terrible thought, though," Neff broke in. "What if she never woke up and someone had to take her to the hospital...because of what I did to her..."

"Or," Parn added tensely, "what if she was taken by the government thugs..."

"How could they have known?" Cordann challenged.

"How could we know that they didn't know—for sure?"

"Because we'd all be abducted or worse by now, don't you think? Listen, we'll do a check of surrounding hospitals—and then we're calling it a day. Hell, maybe we'll just waive the damn job fee, it's not like she'd be too happy with us anyway. Would you be?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"Come on." And Cordann motioned the others to follow him back to the ship lot.

Chapter 14

A new ship had connected itself to The Piercer and two beings of identical appearance boarded Gannik's freighter.

"Ah, welcome, Morski and Korski, The Terror Twins as the underworld knows you," Gannik greeted.

Morski and Korski in their formidable physical statures approached Gannik and stood before him, guarded and cautious in their stance. They both nodded their hellos. Morski neutrally asked, "What's this all about then?"

"Well it's about a job, boys. But not like any job you've taken before, I'm sure. Tell me, what level of commitment is involved in your business acumen?"

"Total," Korski spoke with certainty.

"Total...without question or reserve? If I were to say...the job entails killing a close friend or family member—even your immediate family...what would your total answer be?"

"We said total," Morski answered without delay. "We meant it."

"If I said your mother or father? No hesitation?"

"We would say that they have lived long lives and their time has come," Korski retorted without feeling.

"Little sis?"

"The girtch has had it coming for quite some time," Morski gave.

"Big brother?"

"Again, the girtch has had it coming for quite some time," Korski repeated.

Well...

"Enough theoretical then, I suppose. Your contract is as follows: I want you to kill your brother and his business associates. Eliminate them as early as possible."

"With pleasure," Morski finalized.

"But a question," Korski said, "why him and his idiot friends? They're nobodies; why not our father and his idiot friends?"

"Let's just say your brother and his Restwell pals discovered something that they shouldn't have."

"...Good enough for me. Mors?"

"I couldn't care less what they did. We get to kill them and get paid for it. That's good enough for me."

How thrilling, Gannik thought. This had turned out better than he expected.

Chapter 15

The transport shot into the great gaseous anomaly known as the Neb Nebula and disappeared from sight. So dense was the nebula that its swirling orangish fog tended to shroud anything that delved into it.

Thankfully most if not all ships that frequented the Neb—and The Secret Station—had special navigational sensors installed to successfully avoid getting lost.

Of course, if you had flown the Neb enough times, its path to the station became second nature.

This was certainly the case for Denjer the "Danger Man" transporter and his trusty freighter shuttle Danger One. For thirteen years the middle aged man had been taking passengers in and out of the Neb for the right fee.

Fortunately Hesha had just the right amount to get her into the Neb—and into "The Secretion"—where her trusted companions were waiting. After that, however, Hesha didn't know what she was going to do. Truthfully she hadn't thought that far ahead. She just knew that she couldn't go back to a school with tuition funded by her corrupt father. Or stay in an apartment also funded by him. She had to get away. Who knows if these allowances were actually the result of legitimate practices...or the reviled slave trade.

What was her father thinking?! This thought kept ringing loud in her mind. It unnerved her almost to the point of an emotional tilt. How could she have come from someone so willing to associate with the slime of the galaxy? It didn't make sense to her. It's not like he appeared to her that way when he was raising her. He had always taught her good manners and to treat others with the proper respect. And he had been there for her when her mother, his wife, had passed away. Had been a rock of emotional support through such a traumatic period for both of them.

She supposed in the end that some people never show you all of who they really are. Even the ones closest to you.

Certainly that was also true of her longtime pal, Neff. He simply couldn't stick around to see if she was okay or not. He just had to go off with his friends to do whatever, and leave her to wake up scared and alone!

Well nerk him and nerk my father, she concluded. It's time to see some real friends, some trusted friends.

Hopefully that's exactly what they were....

Chapter 16

Over a conference holo the parents of the Restwell boys met to discuss how their plan was proceeding. So far so good...

"Our planted customer appears to have succeeded in squashing the hopes of our sons," Cordann's father, Caradeen, beamed to the others.

"It would appear so—although they did actually take on one more job afterward. But that also seemed to be a disaster for they weren't even paid for it," Leff added.

"Their morale must have been injured too greatly to perform properly," Excreesha surmised with glee.

"Anytime now they will be crawling back to us, begging to join the family trades," Peesha chimed in with great anticipation.

Smeldus interjected with, "Anytime should have been already, though. Where are those boys?"

"Oh give them a little time to lick their wounds, dear" Ishtinx soothed. "They'll come around."

"Still you have to admit," Leff began to concede, "they did succeed on their first job. Makes you wonder if they actually would have made a go of things in the long run."

"Perhaps they might have. Perhaps they could have worked hard and made a reputable and wide reaching business name for themselves...But how does that help us?" Ishtinx growled.

"Lighten up, Ish, it was just a musing."

"You can stick your musing right up your jasshole, Leff."

"Smeldus, are you going to allow her to talk to me like that? You are a governor, for nerksake."

"He's right, Ish," Smeldus agreed cautiously. "If you would refrain from such profanity, we do have a responsibility to uphold a certain level of integrity—"

"Oh go nerk yourself, Smel," Ishtinx issued.

Both Excreesha and Peesha snickered in immediate response. It was uncontrollable.

Caradeen wrangled with, "People, you know this is pointless arguing. We are getting what we want, we should be celebrating not sniping at each other. Now please."

"Well, I will feel a whole lot better once those boys have finally come home to us, groveling," Ishtinx said, still a bit flustered.

"It will happen—as you said, they will lick their wounds and then realize they have no other recourse but to come to us. Particularly now that it will be the only way they can start to pay off their business loans."

"I'm going to make Neff a global manager," Leff revealed. "He'll like that, I think. Pest control will be nothing but a distant memory."

"Well, Parn is going to head up a whole district wide control sector," Smeldus boasted.

"Morch will be a floor manager for our Shamaran division," Excreesha decreed with pride, finality.

"Shamsharan, dear," Peesha corrected.

"Oh, yes, Shamsharan, that's right." Excreesha turned to her wife and said lovingly, "What would I do without you?"

"What would I do without you?"

They gently moved their foreheads together to touch, dreamy smiles formed on their lips.

"Get a room—in another galaxy," Leff deadpanned.

"Isn't it terribly sad, Leff, that you haven't a love as lucky as ours?" Peesha taunted.

"Stona is my greatest love," Leff defended. "My wife and I have been together for thirty-two years."

"Oh that's right, I forgot about that, and it certainly trumps the twenty years you have been with your mistress," Peesha revealed with mock modesty.

"Yes," Excreesha agreed in the same tone, "we apologize for the misstep in categorizing your commitment to beloved Stona."

"You both go nerk yourselves then nerk each other!" Leff ground out with rage.

"With pleasure," Excreesha retorted and the two wives faced each other with gleeful smiles.

Caradeen cut his transmission of the conference holo and then shook his head in supreme annoyance. Damn fools, he thought, sniping at each other like nerking ten-year-olds. Well hopefully he wouldn't have to suffer them for much longer. Quite soon he hoped to be working alongside Goldin and the Effen galactic lead administration.

As soon as Caradeen could secure slave trade in his sector....

Chapter 17

The off the books transport shuttle Danger One docked in the hangar of "The Secretion" and Hesha exited the ship to make her way to the lounge sector of the station.

There, she located her old pals and said her boisterous hellos. Afterwards, Urvo pulled her aside to a private booth and they did a little more catching up.

Before Urvo finally got down to it. "So what's trub, Hesha? You said your dad was into some shart?"

"Yeah..." Hesha admitted with a morose tone, "...turns out my father who raised me to straighten up and fly right is nothing but a dirty rastard."

"Sharrrt, should I even know what he's done?"

"Trust me, you don't wanna know."

"Devastate...Well, have you thought about what you're going to do? Are you in Dange?"

"...Maybe..." She started to tear up in the eyes.

She fell into him and he supported her with his arm and chest. "Aw, Gee-Gee...Listen, you just stay in the Neb for a while, coalesce."

"Thanks...And it isn't just my father, one of my best friends just up and abandoned me."

"Now who would do such?"

"Oh, Neff and his buddies."

Urvo's brow cinched slightly. "New friend?"

"Old."

He looked away, his brow crinkling further. "...Hm..."

"He just up and leaves when I needed him, apparently his other friends are more important."

"...Are you sure he's an old friend?"

"Yeah, you know him."

"I do?"

"Yeah, don't you remember?"

"Ummm...I guessers..."

"Anyway, you guys wouldn't bail on me, would you?"

"Not our little Gee-Gee. Solidify."

She smiled in comfort then said, "How's Corba? You two still going?"

Urvo frowned slightly. "Ahh, Cor-babe and I went northy-southy."

"Awww..."

"Yeaahh...Turns out...she was holding her male bits from me."

"Aghh...I hate when Danooli's are able to do that."

"Yeah...two years we were going..."

"I'm so sorry."

"Yeah...me too..." A bit of deep disturbance crept on his face. Soon however he straightened his posture to rise, saying, "Listen, Goo, I have to talk to the crew, see who you can bunk with. Be righties."

"Okay."

He got up and went to the others. Hesha became contemplative, considering on relenting where Neff was concerned...

She hit the comm panel built into the booth table.

Chapter 18

The boys were nowhere in particular. Their ship—The Morchmobile—was simply floating in the dead of space, not charted or heading in any direction. The boys were depressed. And when they were depressed, they ate. And after a particularly big meal, the boys felt sluggish and weighed down. So they all slept for several hours.

There were no calls to break them from their slumber, they likely didn't anticipate any coming through. They wouldn't respond anyway, their sleepiness had kept them so far down into dreamland.

When they finally did awaken, however, Neff discovered that a holomessage had been left for him over the comm.

It was from Hesha.

He hit the necessary button for replay and the hollo beamed to life in front of him. Hesha's flickering and bluish image said, "Hey jasshead, thanks for sticking around to see if I was all right. I hope you know that I wouldn't have bailed on you like that. But—since we are and have been good friends for so long, I'm not prepared to cut you out...not yet anyway. I'm gonna give you a chance to make it up to me—but only if you're really sorry about what you did...And if you can find the right private code to discover where this message is coming from. Good luck...jasshead." And she smiled with a wink of her eye.

The holomessage disappeared.

And Neff was left feeling a number of things: relief in knowing that Hesha was actually okay, awake, and in a safe location; guilt in knowing that she was still under unconscious dupe that he and Hesha shared a long standing friendship; and confusion as to what to do next.

His first move was to tell the other boys of the message.

Still a bit groggy, the others took a minute to process the news.

Then Cordann spoke up first. "Maybe it's for the best that she's disappointed by you. Maybe you should just ignore her offer. It's obvious she's doing okay regardless of her feelings toward you," he directed at Neff.

"Oh no..." Parn blurted as his expression turned to dread. "...What if she's been captured by the government? And they're using her as bait to catch us?"

Morch grimaced in annoyance and told Parn, "Again how would they know? We would have found any surveillance in her house!"

"Well..." Parn began to work out a somewhat plausible scenario to back his worry. "...what if she confronted her father, and he decided to turn her in? And she was forced to talk and mention our names?!"

"Well then we're nerked and we're going to die in a most excruciating way!"

"Don't tempt fate like that! You're my friend, aren't you supposed to be a little more supportive?"

"Not really."

"Knock it off, will you?" Cordann said.

But Morch kept up with, "They might just pull your jangus right off—"

"All right, enough! No one is doing nothing to no one, otherwise it would have been done already. We've covered this."

Neff said, "I wanna go find her."

"Look, I understand you feel responsible for tricking her, I get that. But let's face it. Even if we wanted to try and find her, we couldn't; we don't have the pirate code to trace the message's location."

"But your cousin would..."

Cordann stared at Neff with rising trepidation, drawing a deep breath. "No, no, no, that guy is just...creepy—"

"Come on, Cor, just this once. I'd feel a whole lot better if we could just get this resolved—in the honorable way, remember?"

"But he's so creepy, can't you see just how much he truly weirds me out?"

"Please...?" Neff laid on the serious look of pleading as he gripped Cordann by the shoulders.

Cordann stared at his desperate friend up close for a tense, gutwrenching moment of contemplation.

Then finally blurted, "Fine."

"Thanks, Cor," Neff beamed in great appreciation.

"No problem," Cordann deadpanned in horrid reluctance.

Chapter 19

The boys were going home. Well, Coradann's home planet at any rate. It was there that they would find Cordann's infamous hacker cousin, Jadder "The Badder" Blu.

Cordann had no great affection for Jad for the simple fact that he kept making inappropriate remarks where Cordann's sister was concerned. And Jad was just plain weird to begin with, always laughing at the oddest things. And he was constantly suggesting that he and Cordann should hang out more. It made Cordann crazy.

"Cordann, my man, what brings you my way on the fastidious day?" Jadder blurted jovially as Cordann and the other boys entered Jadder's hovel of a living space.

"Hey Jad," Cordann greeted with no flare. "Kinda need your help with something."

"How goes the Restwell Mind and Pest biz? You guys zillionaires already? Hey, you guys need a financial investor? My associate and I are thinking of getting into the money managing racket."

"The Restwell biz is fine."

"And your sister?"

"Fi—good, she's doing okay."

"Sweeet...Well, what can I do for ya?"

"Ah, there's a holotrans that's been encoded from a pirate secure channel. And we need you to hack the code so we can find out where it came from."

"Where was it sent to?"

"Morch's ship."

"The Morchmobile?"

"The same."

"I would need its number and signature code."

And there it was, what Cordann and the other boys knew was necessary in order to find Hesha. They would have to give up the Morchmobile's personal signature code to access Hesha's message. But once it was in Jadder's possession he could then access other functions of the ship. He could trace the vessel wherever it went if he wanted to."

And that didn't sit well with Cordann. Or Morch. Or any of the Restwell boys for that matter.

Morch came forth and handed a piece of paper somewhat slowly to Jad. But before Morch gave it up entirely, he impressed upon the hacker, "Please don't misuse this or give it to anybody else."

"For certain," Jad said with what seemed like a convincing tone.

Morch let it go, and Jad brought it up to his eyes to read the code that was written on it. He stared for a second, slowly nodding, then he said, "Okay now..." He lowered the paper and eyed the boys. "...what be in it for the 'Bad Man'? What do I get in return, kiddies?"

"What would you like, Jad?" Cordann tried.

"Aaaah, ten thousand creds?"

"We have nowhere near that."

"Ummm, a night out with your sister?"

"You know she's a blood relative, right? You get that whole thing..."

"How 'bout this then...let me come with you on your next job? Let me film it for my next holo stream series."

Now this was going to be acceptable, of course, to the Restwell boys. They knew that there was basically no chance of there being a next job. So why not placate Jad and agree to his present request?

"Done," Cordann said flatly.

"Excellent! Well hey, let's get to work!"

And Jad turned to approach and sit at his computer console. He tapped a few buttons then entered the code given to him by Morch. Soon the holomonitor flashed "access gained." A list of holomessages came up.

"Okay," Jad started, "this is the hollo? The last one?"

"That's it," Morch said.

Jad tapped, highlighted the Hesha message, and brought it to the forefront of the display. Its code was featured but most of the numbers were X'd out. "O-kay, let's run my interlace program and see what comes up..."

Jad tapped more buttons on his console and a slew of horizontal lines and symbols flashed the holo. "Could take a few minutes..."

And the room became uncomfortably quiet except for the electronic sounds of the trace program working its magic on the code.

Jad spun his chair and faced the boys, nonchalantly asking to pass the time, "So...Parn..."

"Hm?" Parn piped up, feeling a bit surprised and on the spot.

"You're from Subpaxel, right? Is it true that your dad's governor of a city there?"

"...Um, yep...Keeto City," Parn responded as polite as he could.

"What's that like? Governor's son and all?"

"Um...it's okay."

Jadder nodded a few times. "...Okay..." But then a beep sounded and he spun back around to face the holo. "...Well, I might have known..."

"What?" Cordann asked.

"She called from the 'Secreesh.'"

"The...?"

"The 'Secreesh,' The Secretion—Secret Station in The Neb; she called out of there."

"All right...Thanks, Jad, we'll be in touch." And the boys turned to leave.

"Don't forget about me on your next gig," Jad called after them.

"Will do."

"And say hello to your sister for me."

"No."

"Hey, it's just saying hello."

Chapter 20

Putrak sailed his freighter headlong into The Neb and lost himself in the enshrouding haze. But he wasn't truly gageless in the cloud, he knew where to go to fly his ship straight toward The Secretion. He'd been there several times before and had carried out a few contracts in its dirtied halls. The station was forever a haven for those who wished not to be found or bothered. But it never deterred a stone professional such as Putrak from getting the job done.

And for Putrak's current assignment—or rather, assignments—it was of great fortune that all of what he required would soon be available inside "The Secreesh" as Jad called it.

Hesha was there, of course, but a few choice hypnotherapists held business there as well—trusted ones who built there reputations on complete confidentiality of work.

And he also knew that the Restwell boys would be coming to visit Hesha soon. And wasn't going to waste time trying to memory cap or wipe the four boys. He was going to terminate.

Yes indeed, Putrak had every intention of collecting on that contract as well. Nerk The Terror Twins, he didn't care if they had been assigned to the job. Two contracts secured in one pop meant more money for Putrak. And if Gannik balked or The Terror Twins did the same, then Putrak would show them exactly why he was called "The Much Feared."

The twins were already well-to-do anyway, Putrak knew. Their parents were industry giants, and their kids were spoiled rotten punks who wanted for nothing. So let them go crying to mommy and daddy if they didn't get to be the kind of professional hit men that Putrak clearly was.

Besides, again, more money for Putrak.

The Secretion was not far off.

Chapter 21

A secret meeting—or a secreting, if you're in a combining mood—was about to take place aboard The Piercer. And it was a big one—with all the major hitters present. Goldin Rambidou himself was there along with his pers. ass. Snaris and Rambidou's advisors: Naldon Breck, Draken Gresh, and Orso Telvi...Hesha's father.

Rambidou opened with, "Gannik, thanks again for letting us use your ship as a meeting place away from prying eyes."

Gannik nodded. "My pleasure."

"Well, let's get down to business, shall we, gentlemen? Our first topic of discussion should be the expansion of the slave trade. Naldon, what do you have in the way of contracts?"

Naldon replied with, "The Eshigo system is on board—unofficially, of course. And the Ballion system has thrown its bid for expansion. Dooshlodia wants in, Caradeen Blu has assured me that that's a go. The holdout, naturally, is a Dooshlodian senator named Osis Binarian."

"Ah, our next item of discussion: this senator. Have we set up a contract kill on him yet?" Rambidou inquired.

"Yes, we have," Gannik answered. "Putrak is our man for the job."

"Very good, very good. And he knows when it's to be done?"

"Precisely when, sir."

"Excellent. Now...Orso."

"Yes, sir?" Orso responded.

"It appears your daughter's memory cap has been removed by a hypnotherapy outfit. Which, of course, means that she now remembers everything about our plans."

"...But...I don't understand, why would she have had hypnosis done? Who's responsible for this—?"

"Calm down, Orso, it appears that she received hypnosis most likely as a result of recurrent and disturbing nightmares. Which I'm told is a possible side effect of the memory cap. We just didn't anticipate that she would actually seek out hypnotherapy to solve the problem. Nor did we foresee a company existing that would do both pest control and hypnotherapy—who does that, anyway?" Rambidou asked the men in the room, a grimace to his face. "Why would anyone combine those two professions into one? Are these people troubled somehow?"

Gannik answered, "An outfit called Restwell Mind and Pest Services, sir. Fairly new on the scene."

Rambidou scoffed. "No wonder I feel the need to control the Effen Galaxy."

Feeling quite anxious, Orso interrupted, "If you'll forgive me, what is being done about my daughter? Is someone with her now to try and recap the mem—?"

"Well, she's run off, into the Neb apparently," Gannik answered. "But not to worry, we've sent a trusted man to retrieve her."

"Who? Not an assassin...Did you send Putrak after my daughter—?"

"Relax, Orso, he was only sent to ensure that she has the procedure done again—and that she hasn't talked to anyone regarding our plans."

"Well, it's clear that whoever uncapped her likely knows what she knows—!"

"And that is being taken care of as well. Trust me, it's all wrapped up."

"Listen, Gannik, if my daughter is tortured in any way to get her to reveal who she might have talked to—"

"She won't be. All Putrak would have to do is tap into the surveillance feeds of where she's holed up, locate the compromised persons, and eliminate them. He finds a hypnotherapist on site, and caps her memory again. Snap, snap, snap."

"And what happens if she can't be capped again?! What then?!"

"Let's not think that way," Rambidou said to try and diffuse the situation, deflect. "We hire this man because we're confident in his capabilities to get any job done in the best manner possible. So let's not worry about it. We have much more wide-reaching problems to face here. This Osis Binarian for example. His popularity is gaining; I wonder if perhaps we should even wait till the summit to take him out. Six more worlds are apparently now backing his platform. Who knows how many more he'll have in a week's time."

Naldon politely countered, "Let him get more worlds to fund him and his ideals, sir. When he finally dies on Effen-wide holotrans, we'll have our slave pirateers raid Binarian's treasury. Their money will become our money."

"...Oh yes...Very good, I like that...Very well, let Binarian rally his troops, as they say, fatten his war chest...But come summit time he is a corpse, understand?"

"Perfectly, sir, not to worry."

Chapter 22

Putrak had landed within the hangar bay of The Secretion and was now making his way to the sections where he knew the hypnotherapists were keeping shop.

Two were currently with clients, but one was available for hire: Kerv Semsa. Semsa had been a hypnotherapist for the better part of thirty years, and could certainly be relied on to recap a memory or two. And he was sworn to complete patient/client confidentiality. Besides, his ethics hinged primarily on his desire to stay in business. No one could bribe him for what he knew. This was widely known and respected, for what happened in The Neb stayed in The Neb.

Putrak hired Semsa and they set up an appointment time for a half hour from now. The assassin didn't anticipate the grabbing of Hesha to be anything longer than that.

Stealing a security outfit from the wardrobe room, Putrak located Hesha and flashed a forged security ID badge, and told Hesha that she was to come with him. Her friends balked and protested, but Hesha calmed them down and told them not to make trouble, that it was probably just a misunderstanding. Though she—and most likely her friends—knew it was a bit too convenient that she was being confiscated by security—given her predicament outside The Neb—Hesha still didn't want her friends to be hurt in any way. Urvo promised that he would talk to the authorities to find out what was truly going on. And in the next instant Putrak had whisked her away and out of their sight.

Right on schedule, the two arrived at Semsa's hovel—to the great alarm and confusion of Hesha. But soon she figured it out.

"NO! PLEASE! I don't want anybody messing with my mind anymore!" she loudly protested.

But Semsa tried to calm her with, "Now, now, dear, there's nothing to worry about. I haven't had a bad capping in over twenty years. So you just try to relax and—jiffy, jiffy—this shall be taken care of."

"Oh shart..." Hesha responded in fear as Putrak forced her to sit in the chair Semsa used for clients.

"Stay," Putrak ordered her.

She stared up at him with heated eyes.

The Morchmobile had just landed in The Secretion and the boys were stepping out of their ship to survey the hangar bay.

Morch asked, "So how the hell are we going to find her? None of us has been here before and the station looks pretty massive."

Cordann replied, "There's no choice but to look around—unless we want to go to the admins of this place and try and comm her to meet us at a certain location."

Parn put in, "Maybe she wouldn't want the admins knowing she's here though."

"You might have a point. She bolted for a reason—and usually people end up here because they want to hide."

"So you really think the Effen government found out about her?" Neff asked.

"Anything's possible...Come on, let's have a look around."

"Should we split up? Widen the search?" Morch suggested.

"Might as well. Keep in touch though, every fifteen minutes, say, or if we actually spot her."

"Got it," the others echoed and they all dispersed to search in different directions.

Fifteen minutes later they still hadn't located Hesha, even after asking a number of people if they'd seen anyone fitting her description. One man was quite rude in response: "I know a hundred girls who look like that! Now get lost, Jasshole!" It was clear that inquiring around was not looked upon favorably in The Secretion.

The boys commed each other and reported their zilch findings.

"Keep looking, she's gotta be here somewhere," Cordann encouraged.

"Man, I hope she wasn't taken," Neff worried.

"Just keep looking, check some of the businesses around here too."

"Hey listen," Morch started, "what if she's got a rented room around here; how do we check for that?"

"That's a good point," Parn admitted, "we could be at this for hours, days..."

"Well we didn't come all this way not to find her," Cordann reminded them. "What else have we got to do anyway?"

This brought a thick silence to the shared comm channel the boys were using. After a moment of this, Morch morosely commented, "Wow, we really are done, aren't we?"

Cordann paused then finally announced, "Yeah, looks that way."

"How are we gonna pay off our loans to the banks?" Parn asked anxiously.

"I don't know..."

"Not our folks, right?" Neff reluctantly ventured. "We're not resorting to our folks to pay off the banks...right?"

"Might not have a choice," Morch warned, bemoaned.

"Let the government find us first."

"Well listen, boys," Cordann redirected, "first things first. Let's concentrate on finding Hesha, do our Hail Mandas to her, and then figure our next move. Talk to you in fifteen, hopefully sooner."

The boys switched off their comms and went on with their seemingly endless search.

"You have to relax, Hesha," Putrak began. "If you don't have this done again then what are we to do with you? We can't have you getting this information out in the open, alerting the Effen congress and judicial bodies. You should feel lucky that your father holds his position—and cares enough to save you this way."

"Nerk my father and nerk you!" Hesha spat. "You know what my father and his government friends are into?! Slavery and drug trade!"

"Oh yes, I know," Putrak calmly confirmed.

"Of course you do, you're just as bent as they are. Putrak The Much Feared they call you, right? More like the much odorous and ugly."

Putrak quick-smacked Hesha with the back of his hand. She grunted harshly and grimaced intensely. Calmly he spoke, "Now is this going to become a situation? Because I assure you what you just experienced was but a drop in the ocean."

"Did it ever occur to you that owning people and sucking their souls dry with narcotics is just sick?"

"It's not for me to decide, little girl. My business concerns my contracts. And right now you are my contract. And the parameters of that arrangement are: cap your memory...or kill you. Which do you prefer, Hesha Telvi?"

She looked at him with great fear.

Neff was hungry, and he noticed that a fast serve restaurant was up ahead. He knew it was important to keep searching for Hesha, but he also realized that he was getting lightheaded from an empty stomach. And maybe it might be beneficial in the search to simply stop and allow people to pass by—perhaps Hesha might just be one of them!

He stopped in and got a meal then sat at a dining table to quickly dig in to his food. And while he was chowing down he happened to catch sound of a conversation two aliens were having at a nearby table. It went as follows:

Alien 1: "This basha hash is not fit for dogs."

Alien 2: "Then why are you scarffing it down so much?"

Alien 1: "Eh, I'm not in the mood to return it and make a stink about it."

Alien 2: "At least the meepa is edible."

Alien 1: "Barely."

Alien 2: "You got your repressed memory therapy thing today still?"

Alien 1: "Yeah, so I can't do the cineholo with the gang. Sorry. I tried to get an earlier appointment with Semsa but this burly fella and his waify young girlfriend beat me to it. I betcha the therapy is for her—the guy looked like he was a mean devil, and the girl looked like she was just scared to death."

Something clicked within Neff's mind...what if that girl was Hesha...and she was being forced to get her memory capped again...

He turned to the two aliens and asked them where Semsa's business was located.

The hangar bay received a new transport of visitors to The Secretion—and two passengers of quite similar appearance were among them. Morski and Korski.

The visitors all held their varying purposes for arriving at the station, business, personal, recreation, or all. But the Blu twins—The Terror Twins—were clearly here for one purpose only: to kill their brother and his meddling friends.

Now they just had to find them, isolate them from onlookers, and fulfill their contract.

Neff was waiting. Waiting for the other boys to meet him outside of Semsa's hovel. He could have tried to see if it really was Hesha inside the hypnotherapy establishment—but then he wasn't quite sure just how scary the man was with her. It was best to wait for the four boys to gather, and pose a united front of physical strength if need be.

He just hoped that they would meet up with him soon. He didn't want Hesha—if it was her—to be mentally tampered with yet again.

It may be already too late...

Suddenly the other boys were there, and converged on Neff's position.

Cordann asked, "You see her?"

"No," Neff hurriedly admitted, "Can't be sure it's even her in there, but we gotta find out before she's possibly capped again."

"There's a big guy with her?"

"Supposedly."

"Let's see how tough he is."

And they headed inside Semsa's hovel...

...to find out that indeed it was Hesha being worked on by Semsa...

...And the big, mean guy had just pulled a gun to point at the boys.

Parn blurted in fear, "Hoooooo nerk..."

"No false moves, boys," Putrak ordered commandingly, "Just stay as you are and allow the doctor here to finish."

The boys saw no other choice but to comply without protest.

Morski and Korski were continuing their scanning search of the station walkways, when both happened to spot their prey across the way. The four boys were huddled together discussing something briefly before deciding to enter a business hovel. They hadn't spotted the twins in the slightest, and thus had no clue they were being pursued—and about to be abducted for a private termination.

"Hesha, resist it," Neff said without thinking.

"Say one more word..." Putrak warned and pointed his weapon directly at Neff.

The frightened boy said no more.

Just then, two more people joined the uneasy party—with weapons of their own poised on the boys. The twins were ready to order their prey to come with them.

But then they quickly noticed that someone else in the room had a gun pointed on the boys. And they both re-aimed their guns on the armed man.

"Putrak," Morski said in disgust.

"The Terror Twins," Putrak acknowledged with a supreme look of annoyance. He also trained his gun on the similar looking brothers.

"Mors? Kors?" Cordann said with utter bafflement. "What are you doing here? With guns?"

"Shut up, Cor," Morski barked. "You and your idiot friends here are toast. So just shut it."

"And as for you," Korski directed with venom at Putrak, "you're over with, too. We'll be taking our contract and yours, if you don't mind lowering your weapon and facing the wall."

Putrak smiled in amusement. "I'm afraid none of that is going to happen. In fact, quite the opposite, you two nerkhead amateurs. I'm going to end you and end them, then walk away with the pay for both contracts in the end. You're not even going to be given the opportunity to back out."

Morski scoffed. "Old man, your time has come. We're two guns to your one."

"Is that all? Well, I'll tell you, boys, I'm quaking already."

"You will be. When the shock of being shot several times hits you, you will be."

And a thick silence compressed the air of the room, the tension was immense as the Restwell boys waited for something to happen. Parn wanted to scream like a little boy.

Someone actually spoke. It was Semsa. "I don't mean to sound imposing, but could we possibly move this to another locale? I really need to finish my work here."

"No we can't, so shut up and stay out of the way!" warned Korski.

"Very good then," Semsa said quickly and moved off to the side with haste.

"What's it going to be, old timer?" Morski tensely baited Putrak.

"Call me old timer again," Putrak warned, "and you'll be wearing that gun as a nose ring."

"Come for it, Mr. Much Fearedly," Morski tempted.

"Oh, you're feeling the fear, both of you. I can see it in your eyes. You've come across a true professional and it's making you squirm...You know what?" Putrak quick lowered his weapon to his side. "Take the first shot, boys, right here..." He smacked his chest twice super fast; the twins flinched a bit out of instinct. But then tensed their aims to save face.

"Please, no shooting in here," Semsa begged.

"Did we not tell you to SHUT THE NERK UP, old man?" Korski barked at Semsa.

"I'm still walking the path, Semsa..." Hesha droned in her state of hypnosis.

"Hey, he's using my method," Neff said a bit excitedly, proudly despite the frightening scene.

"Shut up, Neff," Cordann ground out through clamped teeth.

"Come on, boys, I'm here right in front of you. Put this has-been out of his misery," Putrak goaded.

"You know," Morski started, "we heard that you were one fast nerk—" He shot Putrak in the prescribed area—the chest right over the heart. Korski joined in the firing—and Putrak was blasted, thrust backward and on to the floor, wincing and grunting all the way down. He lay on his stomach, his front, groaning apparently in agony. His gun was thrown away out of reach at the point of his being shot. "—But nobody beats a tracer shot, old timer," Morski finished.

Most in the room looked highly shocked, taken aback.

Cordann uttered in buzzing numbness, "Good God, Mors, Kors...you just killed a man..."

"Yeah, we're just getting started," Morski stated as he and Korski shot Putrak a few more times in the back. The downed assassin jerked with each shot then became still.

Then they trained their guns on the four boys.

The boys reacted with severe hesitancy. Parn whimpered.

"Whoa, whoa," Cordann tried with hands out in front of him, palms out. "What is happening, what have we—what have I ever done to cause you two to—"

"You know what, dear brother? Just your general existence is reason enough," Morski retorted with venom, "Only now we're getting paid for it."

"That's right," Korski chimed in, "you and your ultra moronic friends here got your noses into where they didn't belong—found out things you weren't supposed to. So bye, bye you go—"

"Excuse me," Semsa intruded once more, "I know you wanted me quiet but..."

"That's right! We did! And if you wanna end up looking like Putrak here—!"

"It's just that...there's no blood..."

"What?! What are you talking about?!"

Staring down at Putrak, Semsa cautiously repeated, "...There's no blood coming out of him..."

Both twins yanked their stares to the downed assassin...and noticed that Semsa was right.

Both twins got it at the same time, and blurted, "Body armor—!"

And Putrak, living up to his reputation as one of the fastest assassins ever, whipped about, a compact back-up pistol in his grasp, and fired away at the twins!

Both Morski and Korski's weapons were smashed out of their hands and spun far away.

The next shot penetrated Korski's chest! Instantly fearing he was next, Morski whip-grabbed his wounded brother and thrust him in front of himself to barricade, shield from any tracer blasts. Korski immediately became perforated three more times in the upper torso. His life winked out.

Morski violently shoved his corpse of a twin brother right on to Putrak—causing him to fumble his aim and deal with the dead weight upon him. In that instant Morski speedily fled from the room.

In the fumbling of the weapon, Putrak fired a wild shot at the ceiling—causing the boys to instinctively duck. And before Putrak could get Korski fully off of himself and aim at the fleeing Morski, the four boys bumrushed the downed assassin, dogpiling on him. And making sure to get gripping control of the gun hand and its wrist.

"I'm ready to go down the path," Hesha repeatedly droned, oblivious of what was going on around her.

Seeing that the other three boys had Putrak pinned and impotent for the moment, Neff spotted the main gun and leapt over to snatch it up from the floor. He raised himself up and swung to aim the gun at Semsa, ordering, "Unhypnotize her—now!"

Semsa rushed over to Hesha and began verbally bringing her back to full consciousness.

On the floor, the struggle was intense with grunts and growls...and a gritting grimace to Putrak's face as Parn was biting the armed assassin's gun hand to make him let go. As of yet, Putrak was holding firm on the weapon.

"...We're traveling back upon our path, dear girl..." Semsa instructed.

Neff kept trying to keep a clear aim on Putrak, yet it was tricky with his friends blocking the way.

The assassin was clearly a tough customer...but even so, the pain was becoming bothersome on his gun-fisted hand. He released the compact pistol and let it clack to the floor. Parn stopped biting and went to pick up the gun—but that meant that only one hand of Parn's was holding Putrak's meaty arm. As Parn clasped the weapon, he received and uncontrollable and potent slam of Putrak's bitten fist into his nose. The one hit dazed Parn into eye-batting punch-drunkeness; the boy was ineffective in his actions now. Another quick punch sent him reeling off and away.

Next, Putrak used his free fist to pound Cordann in his left ear. Cordann winced greatly and uttered, "OW, MY NERKIN' EAR!" Then Putrak grabbed him by the hair and forcibly yanked the hurting boy off and away from him. Cordann crumpled into Parn.

Now the maddened, powerful fist came for Morch—and Morch clearly saw it coming at him, in all his wide-eyed horror—WHACK!—and the last boy was off of the assassin.

Putrak quickly reached for his compact pistol—but SMASH!—the tiny weapon was blasted from his grasp...

...by a lucky shot from Neff.

Putrak whirled about and eyed the jittery boy holding his main weapon on him. Eyed him with rage.

"...I want you to open your eyes..." Semsa said to Hesha, and she did, now fully aware of her surroundings.

She looked about with surprise. "Neff!"

Still keeping his visual focus on Putrak, Neff nervously ordered, "Hesha, get by the door, we're leaving!"

She complied quickly, as Cordann, Parn, and Morch achingly rose from the floor and followed after. And then Neff backed up to join them, keeping the gun pointed at Putrak's head the whole time.

"Oh little boy, I will find you," Putrak warned with false calm.

"Can't you just leave her alone?" Neff pleaded, "It's not her fault."

"I couldn't care less either way."

Neff gave Putrak a final tense stare then backed out of the room just as the boys and Hesha exited from behind. He hit the door panel and the door itself slid shut. He then fired a round at the panel, damaging it and rendering it inoperable. Putrak and Semsa were trapped inside.

"Let's get to the hangar bay," Cordann prodded the others, "and get the nerk out of here!"

And hastily that's what they did.

Chapter 23

The Morchmobile shot its way out of The Neb and soared on into the far reaches of space. Its heading wasn't bound for any destination in particular, just away from The Neb, away from Putrak.

"Holy nerk, Neff," Parn blurted in awe. "Mr. Bad Jass..."

"I just didn't want to die," Neff replied with a bit of frayed nerves. He still couldn't believe he held a gun on a trained and dangerous killer.

Morch had the ship on autopilot as he and the other boys, and Hesha, sat in the hold, reeling from their near death encounter.

"So I have a quick question," Hesha spoke up in a falseness of calm, "what the nerk?! You guys just leave me to wake up alone and freaking out?!"

Neff offered, "Hesh, we're sorry—"

"And especially you, Neff, you're supposed to be one of my best friends—and you simply had to disappear with your buddies, didn't you?!"

"There's a reason for that that's hard to explain—"

"Don't bother!" she cut him off, her eyes stern, unforgiving.

"Hey girl," Cordann interceded, "you do remember the part where Neff just saved your hide from a psycho bounty hunter, right?"

"Look, I do appreciate you coming for me, I do! But if you guys hadn't left me in the first place, maybe I wouldn't have gotten myself into that mess back there!"

"You know what? Maybe... and then maybe that rastard would have killed the four of us with ease and taken you anyway. Did that ever occur to you?"

"He may still do that," Morch reminded.

"That's true," Cordann agreed with firmness. "So now what do you want to do about it, Hesh? Putrak will eventually escape that room—and he's probably going to bring that hypnotherapist along for the ride. So what's our next move?"

"I wanna find my father. I wanna make him explain to me why he's involved with something so sick as the slave trade—and government control—"

"And there's no chance he might turn us in?" Morch asked tensely.

With venom, she responded, "If he does, I'll strangle him!"

"And so after that—if he does explain himself—then what?" Cordann put back in.

"Yeah, we still have people after us," Parn reminded yet again.

"Yeah, like your brother," Neff directed toward Cordann. "What in the holy nerk! I knew that the twins were a little tightly wound, but I didn't think that they were out and out sociopaths."

"Neither did I," Cordann agreed in stark amazement.

"And then Morski just sacrifices Korski like that... What kind of person does that to their own?"

Parn horrifyingly asked Cordann, "Do you think your parents knew?"

"...If they did," Cordann replied, "then I don't know my family at all."

"Maybe your sister, like, eats live animals or something. Maybe you're the only sane one in the family, Cor."

"...Maybe..."

"Look, guys," Morch focused, "as disturbing as this thing with the twins is, we still need to figure out how we're going to survive this cluster-nerk of a situation."

"Just get me to my father," Hehsa reiterated with finality.

Chapter 24

Osis Binarian was excited. And nervous. Only six days away from the big Effen Summit. Six days away from making what he hoped to be a historic and indelible plea to the galaxy for reform.

If he could make it to the summit and live that long, that is. His advisors had been hearing disturbing rumors of a contract hit out on Osis' life. No doubt the hit originated from the Effen slave traders plaguing many sectors. He could only imagine the sickness of mind that was willing to profit—and immensely!—off the owning and exploiting of living beings.

"Sir," Osis' top advisor, Meekan, requested, "I have good news."

Osis turned from staring out at the stars from the ship's viewscreen and faced Meekan. "What have you got?"

"The Taldo system has just thrown in its support for your proposal—and they've also thrown in a sum of eight hundred thousand to our campaign account!"

"That's terrific, Meekan, I'm pleased to hear that, of course."

Meekan could detect a note of false enthusiasm in Osis' voice. "Buuut... something's troubling you... is it the whispers of an assassination attempt, sir?" Osis didn't answer, only looked away with his eyes. "I wouldn't give such attention to it, sir, it doesn't make much sense now to try and take you out. To do so would only bring about a serious investigation into the very people we're trying to expose."

"Would it...? I wonder... An out and out assassination attempt likely would, sure..." Osis now turned to walk a few paces from Meekan. "...Unless they were clever enough to make it look like an accident... natural causes and the like."

"Do you want to back out of the summit, sir? I'm not sure that's the kind of message we want to send to our supporters—"

Osis returned his sights to his advisor. "No. The summit can't be avoided, it's too important to everything we stand for... But I need to know what's coming for me—what's coming for all of us possibly."

"How do you want to go about it, sir?"

"...We're near the Dooshlodian system, why don't we hire an independent sourcer of information from there."

"A hacker, sir?" Meekan asked with a bit of shock.

"An information specialist."

"But that is what you're asking, isn't it, sir? A systems hacker who can get into places we cannot—that is what you're suggesting..."

"I know it's a little bit questionable—"

"Questionable? It could downright derail us in the eyes of our supporters, sir."

"I'm open to another suggestion if you have one, Meek..."

Meekan's eyes darted about in nervous contemplation. "...I'll... see who I can find who might be discreet enough—but I don't know how well we'll be able to hide this, money wise."

"... Try to offer him or her something other than money as compensation."

"Yes sir... I'll see what I can do."

And so Meekan, after flossing and brushing so as to have minty fresh breath, departed from Osis' ship in an envoy shuttle to the surface of Dooshlodia.

While he was en route, Meekan checked their own computer files to see who might fit the description. He hoped he could find someone through this method who resided on Dooshlodia—and that he could locate this person discreetly. He did not want to have to resort to asking around of the locals for help in pinpointing a viable hacker. That would simply bring too much undesired attention to Meekan's and Osis' plans.

Fortunately, the files managed to pop up a decent candidate—a Dooshlodian-born young man by the name of Blu.

Jadder Blu, to be more precise.

The boy's address—or the last known one—was also in the file.

Meekan told his shuttle pilot to land near the hacker's residence, not too close as to spook the boy, of course, but close enough for walking distance.

The advisor only hoped he could reason with this nefarious sort of Dooshlodian citizen.

And that this Jadder Blu would accept something other than monetary compensation.

Chapter 25

Hesha's Father, Orso was just about to leave his lush apartment for a meeting with his boss, Naldon, when his front door slid aside to reveal unexpected guests.

His daughter—and four young men with whom he was not familiar. They stepped through the doorway.

"Hesha..." Orso blurted in surprise.

"Hello, father," Hesha greeted with thick tension in her voice.

"What are you doing here?"

"What? I can't just pop in to see my dear old father anytime I like?"

"No, it's fine, honey," he offered nervously, "it's just that I'm—I was just about to leave for an import—"

"Oh, I think you can spare a few moments to visit with your only daughter, can't you?"

"Who are these boys with you?" he asked, bouncing his stare to the Restwell boys.

"They're friends—real friends. Those who have a vested interest in my wellbeing."

"Well—I'm glad but, again, I really have to—"

"Yeah, I insist that you stick around and have a chat with your daughter," Neff interrupted, revealing that he had Putrak's gun in his grasp and pointed at Orso.

The father's expression tightened. "...What do you want? What have you gotten yourself into, Hesha?"

"What have I gotten myself into?!" Hesha barked. "What about you?! The slave trade?! Mind altering, brain control drugs?!"

"Hesha..." Orso tried.

"And you have me taken and hypnotized?! Memory capped?! Twice?!"

"That was for your protection! Do you think I wanted you taken into some backroom and killed!"

"How could you do it?"

"How could I do it? Have you saved?!"

"No, how could you be involved with such horrible and sick people?!"

"What choice do I have, Hesha? This is my job—and this our government. And this is the way it has been for so long that the galaxy can't remember any other way. And because it's what's kept you in good schools with good food in your belly and decent clothes on your back!"

"So you're saying it's my fault that you sold your soul?!" she asked, mortified and disgusted.

"Hesha, I will do anything to keep you safe and sound. Anything." There was lament in his eyes but resolution in his voice.

"Yeah, how's that been working out so far?" she bit with sarcasm.

"Hesha...just...allow them to cap your memory again. Then you won't have to be burdened with the whole sordid business—"

"Nerk no! I'm not going back to sleep like that! And I bet you when that senator, Binarian, starts making headway at the Effen Summit and gains more support, the whole galaxy won't go back to sleep either!"

"Oh honey...don't be so naïve."

"What do you mean by that?" she asked with narrow, accusing eyes.

"Darling, I love you, truly I do, but I have to leave now—or is your trusted friend here going to shoot me?"

"Mother would have despised you for this."

"Yes. She would have...if I hadn't capped her memory too," he admitted in shame, and moved to pass by the others and exit the apartment.

Chapter 26

"Ooooh-ho-ho man..." Jadder blurted with trepidation as he sat behind the computer terminal on Osis' vessel. The young hacker had just hacked some very alarming information.

"What did you find, Jad, tell me," Osis requested eagerly as he stood a few feet behind the seated young man.

Jadder whirled about in the chair to face Osis. "Okay, but you are not going to like this..."

"Please tell me."

"Ever hear of an assassin called Putrak The Much Feared?"

"No."

"Well he's heard of you, and you're his next assignment according to what I just read."

Meekan, who was standing next to Osis, said, "This is not good, sir. This man, I've heard, is the best at what he does—when he strikes you will never see it coming."

"Yeah, what he said," Jadder added apprehensively.

Osis' eyes darted in fear and desperate contemplation. He remained silent however.

Instead, Meekan offered, "Perhaps we can raise enough in the next few days to come up with our own Effen-wide presentation platform—broadcast from a secure location—"

"No," Osis said firmly. "No, we have to present at the summit. If we don't we would appear to be weak and not resolved in our ideals. Step up our security measures, hire more people if necessary, but we have to make this appearance."

"...You're right, of course...You're prepared to sacrifice yourself for this cause, aren't you?"

"If it comes to it...But like you said, my demise at the event would only rally our cause to new heights."

"That's if it can be proven there's foul play."

"Well that's why we have our friend here..." They glanced at Jadder, who smiled back like a giddy fool. "...Hopefully he can find out everything about this assassin's methods."

"Ummm—yeah, okay, all right, okay—yeah," Jadder got out in nervousness and excitement.

"You can do it, right?" Osis said to the boy.

"If it's out there I'll find it. It's what I do—although my friend and I are thinking of branching out into personal finance, which reminds me—"

"We just need your information skills," Meekan stressed to the boy. "And to that..."

Jadder stared at the two political figures for a second more with his big silly grin, then got Meekan's inference. "...Right." He whirled back around and got to work.

Chapter 27

"Where in the nerk are those boys?!" Koleffukus shouted to the room as the other parents of the Restwell boys stared at him.

Caradeen offered, "No one knows. They aren't responding to holocalls."

"Well it's your son's ship they use," Leff directed at the mothers of Morch, Peesha and Excreesha. "Don't you have a way of tracking him if you need to find him?!"

Excreesha answered defiantly, "We're not hackers, Leff, we can't just comp-wiz our way into his ship's ID code."

"Well what kind of parents are—?! Never mind, look who I'm asking."

"Your son hasn't bothered to contact you either," Peesha reminded Leff.

Parn's father, Smeldus, put in, "None of ours have—which means that either they're being quite stubborn...or they've gotten into some sort of trouble. Caradeen, don't you...have a nephew who is a lowlife hacker? Wouldn't he be able to track them, no problem?"

"Jadder? Yes, he's a hacker, but I loathe to use him," Caradeen admitted with a frown.

"Why, because he's family?"

"No, not at all... it's just that... I can't stand the boy."

"We have to find our sons, Caradeen, they are the future of our legacies."

Caradeen's mind and expression warred with themselves. "...Oh, all right, I'll contact the little jisser, see if he can turn them up... Damn, I hate family..."

"Now to other matters, Caradeen," Peesha spoke up.

"...What other matters? I know of no other business we need to discuss."

Excreesha countered with, "Oh, that's not quite true, Caradeen. Our little whisperers have been whispering. It seems you are bringing a new business venture to your system. One that could potentially catapult you into new heights of monetary revenue—and possibly secure you a seat at the big Effen governmental table."

Playing dumb, Caradeen gave, "You have me at supreme loss, ladies, I haven't a clue as to what you're talking about—"

"Save it, Caradeen," Leff cut him off succinctly, "our sources have confirmed you are elevating the slave trade to fatten your pockets and widen your political reputation."

"That's right, Care, and we all want a piece of the trade pie," Parn's mother, Ishtinx, chimed in.

Caradeen stood silent for a brief moment, soaking in this new wrinkle to his grand plan. Finally, however, he spoke, "All right... I suppose it was naïve of me to think that I could keep something this big from your prying eyes and ears. If you want in, fine—but don't be expecting any super-sized cuts of that pie. I'll offer ten percent to each of you."

"Twenty," Excreesha amended quickly. "Twenty for each of us."

"Leaving only forty for me?!" Caradeen said with aghast. "Nerk you, nerk you right up your jasses! I am the one who has been brokering this deal for the past six months! I should at least retain sixty percent of the revenue!"

"Twenty percent, Caradeen," Leff said firmly, "or would you prefer that the Effen Supreme Court get wind of your recent plans?"

Caradeen seethed within, and it was barely contained on his face. "...Fifteen percent—"

"Twenty," Ishtinx reiterated.

"Seventeen!"

"Twenty."

"Eighteen!"

"Twenty."

"Nineteen!"

"Twenty."

"...All right, damn you, nerks, twenty percent for you vipers—but we put it in writing! And I keep a copy of the documents! If I go down for this for some reason then so do all of you!"

"Agreed," the others all said.

Caradeen breathed a deep breath of frustration, annoyance. His next thought was that he may have to kill these people at some point.

Chapter 28

Hesha and the boys had retreated to the Morchmobile, feeling lost and dejected after their meeting with Orso.

Neff opened up the conversation with, "Maybe we should find another galaxy to start again. Putrak is probably loose already and looking for us."

But Hesha had another train of thought. "I don't like what my father said about Osis Binarian... It sounds like they have a plan for him—like maybe to get rid of him."

"If they do, I bet you ten to one they're sending that Putrak jasshead to do the job... right after he possibly finishes with us," Parn admitted nervously.

"How do we find Binarian?" Hesha asked to no one specific.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold your noodles here," Cordann spoke up. "We can't go on some half-jassed crusade to rescue a senator when we got our own shart-storm to deal with."

"That's right, Hesh," Morch chimed in, "I'm actually thinking Neff has the right idea about bailing this galaxy for a whole new one."

"Thanks, Morch," Neff said with comradery.

"You're welcome."

"Oh really?" Hesha asked with mock interest. "And how are you going to make a living in this whole new galaxy which you know nothing about?"

"...Don't know, to be honest..." Morch admitted after considering. "...But I'm willing to bet you it's a better chance of surviving than sticking around here, in this big Effen mess."

"Well you go off then, go find your new lives," she said with disdain.

"No, come on," Neff started with a bit of a grimace, "you're coming with us, Hesh, you have to. They're after you too, you know. What chance do you really think you have against these people? These are government people—they get what they want no matter how it's gotten."

"No," Hesha concretely responded. "Go ahead, drop me off somewhere, I'll start my own resistance, get people to listen to me and join me. I'm not running and I'm not going back to sleep!"

"You're gonna start your own resistance?" Cordann scoffed.

"What, I can't? You think I can't start my own rebellion?!" She stared at the boys with wide-eyed fury for a brief instant then whirled about and stormed out of the hold. The door swiped shut after her leaving the boys glancing uncomfortably at one another.

Neff decided to offer up, "Guys... we can't just let her go out there to fend for herself—not when that monster is after her."

"Two monsters," Morch corrected. "Cordann's brother is also after her."

"That's right, two of 'em, damn it. Now we might be able to escape capture roaming to other regions of the vast nothing out there—maybe even become successful if we're lucky. But come on, we're always gonna be wondering if her death was on our heads. Now you can't deny that."

"We've made no big jiss-hill about her coming with us, she's free to do so. It's her choice to stay and get killed, isn't it?" Cordann rationalized.

"Well, you can stand there and tell yourself that, Cor. But you know it's not going to hold up over time, you know it."

Silence claimed the room, thick silence.

Finally, Cordann put to Neff, "You want us to stay. You care about Hesha, I get it, and you feel responsible... So own up to it—give us a plan that makes sense, something that sounds good, something solid."

Neff braced himself. "First, we have to follow with what Hesha had suggested—we have to find Binarian."

"How?"

Neff took a deep breath, and eyed Cordann with a look that communicated a consequence of great discomfort.

"...No, not Jadder again..."

Neff's look was sympathetic—but unwavering.

Chapter 29

Unbeknownst to Jadder, both Cordann and his father were trying to locate their familial annoyance of an "information specialist." Both were unsuccessful, of course, for Jadder had already shipped out with Binarian and his staff.

Caradeen, feeling somewhat relieved of turning up dry in finding Jad, decided to try and contact his twin darlings, Morski and Korski, to see what they might be able to turn up. He knew the twins were resourceful chips off the old block and had a good ship for travel. Cordann might even resort to contacting them and save a great deal of searching.

Although it would be more likely that Cordann would get in touch with his young sister before he ever thought of talking to the twins. Caradeen knew that the brother and sister always held a greater affection for one another.

But his daughter did not own her own ship yet. Best to tap the twins for the task.

Meanwhile, Cordann felt his own wave of relief at not being able to reach his jasshead of a cousin. But now he felt the pressure to come up with an alternative.

But what could that alternative possibly be?

And then it hit him. "Boys, Hesha," he announced to the room, "I can't locate Jadder."

"Thank God," Parn blurted out of great relief.

Cordann continued, "Trust me. But since we can't, I vote that we go to the summit ourselves, try and beat Binarian—and hopefully Putrak and my brother—to the punch."

"And then what?" Morch asked. "We still don't have access to Binarian; he'll have his security people with him, won't he? It's not like we can just walk up to him and ask to hang out."

"No..." Neff began as if a miracle idea had knocked him over the head, "...but we can pretend that we're there to clean his place!"

"Exactly," Cordann concurred with a knowing smile. "We let loose some critters in the substructure or wherever he's staying—which has got to be close to the summit stadium, I'll bet."

"And then we answer the call," Parn finished the thought... or thought he had. "...How do we answer the call though? What if they decide to call someone local?"

"I've got it," Hesha spoke up exuberantly, "you let loose the critters in the building then just show up to their door—as if you were already called by the owners of the hotel or something."

"That's it," Cordann confirmed as he quick-pointed a finger in Hesha's direction.

"That's it!" Morch echoed enthusiastically. But then the verve in his expression faltered. "...That's thin... that's really thin, I see so many things wrong with that."

"Oh, I agree," Cordann admitted, "but that's our best shot, the way I see it... Unless someone's got a better a plan."

No one did apparently for the room turned silent for an anticipatory moment.

But then Parn said, "I'm excited! Let's do this!"

"Let's be us, let's do crazy!" Neff chimed in.

"Let's do it!" Morch rang in, "Let's go get arrested or shot!"

"Morch, turn this boat toward the summit," Cordann said with gusto.

"Right, boss," And Morch headed for the cockpit controls.

But before he got far, Hesha stopped the room with, "Boys..." Her eyes turned soft with connective emotion, respect for the four young men. "...I just want to say that I'm extremely proud to call you guys my friends right now... You're the start of my rebellion." She smiled warmly and motioned for all four boys to come in for a hug.

They returned the gesture by converging to receive her embrace as best they could, smiles of their own forming on their faces.

Chapter 30

"Yes, father, hello, what's up?" Morski mustered with a small measure of strained politeness. He was seated at the cockpit of his and Korski's vessel and staring into the holo transmission of his father, Caradeen.

"Morski," Caradeen responded, "where are you boys?"

"Where we are." Morski smiled mockingly.

"Cute," the father gave in the same sarcastic tone. "Are you two anywhere close to home?"

"Why?"

"I have a task for you boys. You do still grasp the concept of family responsibility, yes? You haven't forgotten everything that we have imparted to you over the years, have you?"

Morski breathed a breath of annoyance. "No."

"Where is your brother anyway? Why isn't he co-piloting as usual?"

"He's sleeping off a night of hard partying. Poor brother."

"But you did not join in?" Caradeen asked with genuine suspicion.

Morski spread his arms out to his sides as he retorted, "Designated driver. Someone has to pilot this second-hand wreck—since you couldn't spring for a model that autopilots."

"Count your blessings, boy. When I was coming up I had to borrow my old man's ship to go anywhere. I had to scrounge and save to buy my own ship—and yours looks a damn sight better than what I finally ended up with. So count your blessings and count them well!"

"Doing so as we speak, dear father. Now what is it you want?"

Caradeen composed himself to direct his thoughts to the task at hand. "I need you to track down your brother and his industrious friends."

"...Why?"

"The details aren't—"

"Why, father?"

"...They've... they're delinquent on their business loan that I cosigned for," he lied. "It's imperative that I find them."

"You... cosigned their loan? I thought you opposed that whole business venture of theirs."

"I did, I do... but I figured... why not give them one shot—just to prove I would be right about them—and of course I was."

"So now I—we gotta deal with it?"

"Again, have I taught you nothing of—"

"Yeah, all right, all right, fine—if only to get you off my back."

"Thank you," Caradeen said with sarcasm. "Now do you two know an info specialist that's reliable? I can't seem to locate your dotty cousin for the job."

"Yeah we know a person," Morski answered in his own indignant tone.

"Perfect. Then I'll get back in touch with you in a few days for an update."

"Can't wait. Say hello to Betley for us."

"That's mother to you—!"

But Caradeen was cut off by Morski as he ended the transmission with a hit of a console button. The annoyed young man sat back in his cockpit chair and pondered this new development.

And suddenly his mood brightened, for he realized that his father's request was actually a benefit to his cause. Now suspicion could be reduced greatly should it somehow come to pass that Morski's presence was in evidence at the time of the Restwell boys' demise.

Excellent! thought Morski; time to get in touch with his hacker friend and connection....

Chapter 31

Putrak and Semsa had finally broke their way out of Semsa's hovel and had freed theemsleves of the nebula. Currently they were journeying through space onboard Putrak's vessel.

Semsa had hated having to leave his establishment of trade but Putrak had insisted... with a gun to the hypnotherapist emphasizing that insistence.

"Listen, good Putrak," Semsa started gingerly as he sat in the copilot seat next to the assassin, "please know that I do fear you muchly, there's no doubt of your reputation... But you must realize that taking me away from my business hovel will undoubtedly cause me great loss of revenue—"

"I'll compensate you reasonably," Putrak answered succinctly to hopefully silence the annoying tagalong of a hypnotherapist. "Now just sit back and relax—that's an order."

"Yes, good sir," Semsa responded humbly. "So... how do we find them?"

"If you have to know, I have a directory of ship codes for all registered ships. A little present from my friends in the government."

"Ah, I see... convenient."

"Very... It looks like our prey is heading for the capitol system. Lucky for me—I may be able to tie up two kills, possibly even three if that rookie assassin tracks them there as well... One can hope, hey, good doctor?" Putrak gave Semsa a look and loaded grin, then turned back to face the stars.

Semsa gave back a placating smile but then looked away himself to swallow uneasily.

Chapter 32

The capitol planet of Wayupinyu was the political nerve center of the whole Effen Galaxy. In certain sectors of the planet it was prime for deep excavation. But mostly it was where the government resided, it was where Rambidou and his administration ruled out of an opulent and vastly structured building. And nearby to it sat the legislative and judicial establishments where laws were enacted, discussed, proposed, enforced... argued over into bureaucratic oblivion.

And once a year it was the exclusive site for the Effen Galactic Summit: an event that allowed all representatives from all worlds in the galaxy to present grave issues, new proposals, innovative discoveries and social practices, and announcing of future intentions. And it would be broadcasted as live as possible to every system capable of receiving a holotransmission.

And most worlds that could watch the summit frequently did. It was a way to stay truly connected to what was happening in the galaxy they lived in. And it was a grand platform for political hopefuls to show their "stuff," their charisma, their strategies for improving the Effen mess that plagued the systems for eons.

And since the summit was only a few days away, it was important for all delegates and political hopefuls to arrive on the capitol world to make preparations for the grand event. Osis, naturally, was among these new arrivals along with his team of aides and supporters. This also included the excited youth, Jadder Blu.

To Osis and his crew's eternal annoyance and regret.

The purposeful lot had set themselves up in a hotel not a mile away from the summit stadium.

Cordann, Hesha, and the other Restwells arrived at Wayupinyu a day later... which was a problem for them in that they had no way of knowing which hotel Osis was staying in. The plan now was to split up and scope out the various hotels near the stadium, see if Osis or any of his well-known associates would turn up to clue to their hotel spot.

After a few hours of casing hotels they caught a break as Parn witnessed Meekan and another aide enter a particular hotel establishment. He also surreptitiously followed them up and discovered exactly which room they entered.

And before Parn departed the hallway to exit the hotel and find his friends, he thought he heard a familiar annoying laugh come from the room of interest....

Chapter 33

Morski couldn't believe his luck. He just simply couldn't believe it.

After just receiving word from his hacker associate, the fledgling assassin had learned that his useless, moronic brother and his useless, moronic friends were heading to the same location as the main mark—the foolish and deluded senator. Win-win. Now if he just had them all in the same spot—that would be perfect for his kills. But it mattered not if that didn't happen.

He was going to kill all of them regardless of the time or place.

Chapter 34

"What was that noise?" Meekan offered as he whipped his head about inside the hotel room. A rustling had come from somewhere but he couldn't detect the exact location. It was a bit muffled.

"Sounds like it's coming from the walls," Osis commented as he, too, eyed the room for the sound's source.

The other staffers and security men were also scanning the room this way and that, nervous. Jadder mirrored the action with a gaping-mouthed grin. "Uh... you got botters I think..." And he laughed nervously yet flippantly.

"Oh terrific..." Meekan uttered in exasperation.

"...So anyway, I gotta use the restroom," Jadder added and excused himself to the facilities.

The rest of the rooms occupants rolled their eyes in annoyance before continuing to try and track the bothersome noises.

"Think we should call some—?" Osis began to ask Meekan—when a knock at the door sounded. All eyes turned toward it.

Meekan went to the door and asked loudly, "Who is it?"

"Restwell pest control, sir," came Cordann's somewhat muffled voice through the door.

Meekan turned to stare at Osis in confusion. "That was fast..." he muttered whisperingly.

"A little too fast," Osis returned with apprehension, and gave his security team a look. They sprung into action, flanking the door with poised weapons.

Meekan addressed the door again. "We didn't call anyone."

"Oh yes, I know," Cordann's voice came back, "management has been getting complaints from several guests. We were sent by them—management, I mean."

Meekan threw Osis another suspicious look then responded to the door. "My friend, I'm afraid that doesn't add up, management is supposed to notify us before anyone comes up to the room—"

"Oh yes, I know. Unfortunately everyone is calling them, so... You can try them if you like and let 'em know we're here—but the longer you wait the more damage the critters do."

Meekan tried his holophone. As Cordann described, the hotel lines were busy.

The skittering sounds within the walls continued.

Meekan gave a glance to the security—do I open?

They gave tense nods and tightened their grips on their weapons.

Meekan said to the door, "Okay, I'm going to open up—but be aware, this room carries a very important delegate. There are security agents in here with weapons ready. If you try any sudden moves we will open fire, do you hear me?"

"Yes, we understand—and we will be very discreet."

"When I open the door I want your business registration ID held out for me to inspect."

"Doing so now."

"All right..." Meekan mumbled to the armed security, "...here we go." And he hit the button to slide the door open.

And as it did, the security detail snap-pointed their weapons at Cordann, Hesha, and the other boys.

Holding out his business ID card in front of him, Cordann blurted, "Whoa, whoa, easy, easy... here's my credential."

Meekan looked it over carefully. "Looks legit."

"Thanks."

"Your name is—"

"Cordann!" Jadder exclaimed with surprise and glee, having just emerged from the john. "Cuz! You're here!"

"You two are related?" Meekan managed, caught off guard.

"Nerk yeah, Cor's my favorite relative—aside from his sister, of course!"

Cordann's face soured at the mention of his sister.

"So you would vouch for the authenticity of their occupation?" Meekan asked Jadder.

"Nerk Yeah, they're pros—oh hey! Lemme get my holocam—"

"I'd rather you didn't."

"No, it's okay! They promised I could holo their next gig!"

"Actually," Cordann began, "I'm afraid we didn't come just to clean the room of infestation..."

"Oh?" Meekan asked with a note of suspicion.

"We also came because we have an urgent matter we need to discuss with Mr. Binarian."

Hesha, who was also clad in a Restwell uniform—an extra of Parn's—came forward gingerly and spotted Osis. "Mr. Binarian, my name is Hesha. My father, Orso, works for the Effen president. We believe that your life may be in serious danger from my father and those he works for."

"That's right, sir," Cordann chimed in. "We're sorry for our deception but we had to meet with you. There's a grave possibility that a dangerous killer named—"

"Putrak?" Osis entered in. "Yes, we know. The underworld sects are abuzz with the news. Your illustrious cousin here discovered that Putrak has been hired to kill me—most likely as I make my way to the summit. How is it you people came by this information?"

"We went to visit my father," Hesha revealed, "and he hinted at what you now have just confirmed. I discovered by accident that he and his bosses... that Rambidou is in with the slavers of the underworld—and that he is working on ways to control the senate and courts."

"That's right, sir," Neff added, "and they tried to make Hesha forget, to cap her memory so they wouldn't have to kill her. But we helped her remember."

"Yes. My father wants my memory buried again—but I won't go back to sleep. I want to help you stop these rastards, sir." Hesha stared at Osis with pleading yet determined eyes.

Osis stared down Hesha, then the other Restwell-clad boys. With skepticism he asked them, "And you all share her fervor for change, Restwell pest control young entrepreneurs?"

Cordann admitted, "Well, we're all in it, sir. We all know what she knows. We're all liabilities to the government."

Osis nodded. "I see... Well, come on in then, we have much to discuss."

Chapter 35

Putrak The Much Feared landed on Wayupinyu the day of the summit—two hours before the event, to be exact. And this was intended for the assassin would need that block of time to prepare for his hit on Osis.

First, he strictly instructed his hypnotherpist tagalong to stay put on the ship, wait for his return. The assassin would complete the Osis hit and then go after Hesha and her idiot friends. Once that part was done, he would drop off Semsa at a transport station—and finalize things with a free killing of the surviving Terror Twin. Morski, was it? Hard to tell since they were identical. But it mattered not, all Putrak TMF had to do was find him and eighty-six him. Morski or Korski, it was kill either way.

But for now it was time to put everything into place for the Osis contract. In fact, the prep work for the senator's demise had already taken shape. Bribery of a medical lab on Dooshlodia afforded Putrak a sample of Osis' DNA. From there he had an underworld poison specialist work to incorporate a toxic serum that would be conducive exclusively to Osis' genetic code. Meaning it would be lethal to the good senator and no one else in the galaxy. Once the serum had been synthesized, the specialist then had it weaponized into a gaseous form and pressurized into a compartment.

A compartment resembling a radiation detector commonly used in sewer structures on Wayupinyu's summit grounds.

The next step was to secure a cover position as a security detail assigned to the summit's sewer canals. This would be possible through Rambidou's covert interference and doctoring of security ranks. Anything to ensure the job was completed and the target was eliminated.

Putrak found an isolated location and changed into the security uniform. He then headed out to the summit grounds to meet up with the other security detail members. He introduced himself as their new supervisory lieutenant and ordered them underground. From there he instructed them to disperse to different pathways but to stay in touch.

And now Putrak was on his own and free to traverse the proper canal route that would lead to the section just below the stadium stage—where all the senators including Osis would make their speeches. A few minute's travel time and he was there, where he located the working radiation detector fastened to the canal's curved walling. He detached the device and replaced it with the false one—the one filled with the poison gas and rigged to release as Osis began his speech. Not long from now.

Putrak found a drainage opening to the surface—a vantage point to the stage's podium position—and waited.

Chapter 36

As Rambidou had given Putrak the appropriate guise to complete his mission, so, too, did Osis provide the perfect cover for Hesha and the Restwell boys. He dressed them in their own security outfits and dispersed them among the gathering crowd inside the summit stadium. Cordann and the others were given guns though none intended on using them. Instead they kept in hand their traunt infrared detectors. Cordann had a feeling that they would come in handy based on what Jadder had told him of Putrak's methods of assassination. "It's always going to be something you can't easily see coming," Jad had informed his cousin. So the traunt detectors were used as a back-up. Plus, as Morch commented to the other boys and Hesha, "We just look cool using 'em."

There were a few senators up before Osis had his say. These Effen representatives championed different causes and thus spoke of them in their presentations to the summit and galaxy at large.

The first to flaunt his verbal skills to the microphone was Senator Greegus from the Spanjo System. His hope was to bring a greater awareness to the problem of network holo services—and whether the network companies: Spirt, Go Cubed, Effen Great, and Goop Mobile should merge for better reception capabilities.

Next up to the podium was Oogley Dopus of the Crandite System. His push was for improved transit systems form Crandite to Mandite. Dopus claimed it was for the benefit of those who had relatives and friends on both planets. But really it was so he could get to his Mandite mistress in faster time. He was, after all, a very busy man.

Finally it was time for Osis to take the stage and speak his peace—plead for the galaxy to end the utter lunacy of slave trade. Would the Effen Galaxy listen? Take his plea seriously and demand that the government dismantle the trade? Osis didn't really know for sure. The blasphemous trade had been plaguing the galaxy for ages.

And would he even get a chance to get a word out to Effen? As he made his way over to the podium, tension stiffened his entire being. When would it come? And how?

He reached the podium and cleared his throat. "Greetings, all peoples of this great Effen Galaxy..." he began. And swallowed. If this was it, this was it. "I come before you to speak of a terrible disease that has sickened our worlds for many lifetimes. Some of you may not know of this ongoing scourge of a business exchange. Others of you may have felt its presence but considered it not your concern when so many other problems exist.

"But whether you knew of it or not, I'm here to enlighten you of the full scope of this gross affliction to our galaxy! A disease known as—"

Suddenly a deep pop was heard from behind Osis and the stage. Osis' brow cinched as he was mentally distracted. He searched about but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary.

And of course he wouldn't—the gas that just ignited was colorless and odorless, invisible to the naked eye. It would soon rise up through the drainage opening, reach the stage and the podium—and then Osis. And no one would be the wiser.

No one.

Except for the four boys who had their traunt detectors on and tracking the stage! The devices picked up any anomaly of a microscopic nature—and the gas happened to be noticed in the scan!

Cordann was the first to hit the comm on his wrist—one linked into all of the security men and women protecting Osis. He shouted, "Get him off the stage! Now! NOW!"

And it happened in a flash—Osis security detail swarmed on him and yanked him off stage, rushed him to the side exit, and whisked him out of sight. The crowd was in an uproar of confused chatter. And some frightened screams.

Chapter 37

The plan as Osis and the rest had laid out was to use Morch's vessel as a getaway ship; instead of Osis' own transport. The rationale being that the senator's ship was too well known. Also agreed upon was that Parn would stay behind to try and detract any pursuers. Lead them in the wrong direction. Not that Parn liked that part of the plan, but he did draw the short straw.

Thus everyone rushed aboard the Morchmobile except for Parn. The docking port was in a state of near chaos over the stage incident. The Morchmobile was barely cleared for takeoff when another ship—a rented one—landed, itself. Aboard the freighter sat a very confused Morski. What the nerk was all the fuss about? But then he spotted something that caught his interest: Parn. And where Parn was, the other boys weren't far behind. Fortuitous indeed, he mused. But then something else caught his eye—in the storm of people wanting to get to their ships, a crafty type had come behind Parn and put a gun to his back.

It was Putrak.

Now this really proved interesting to Morski.

Chapter 38

Wayupinmee was a less hospitable sister planet to Wayupinyu and thus carried fewer indigenous lifeforms. It was for this important factor alone that Osis decided to land there and regroup, figure out what to do next. Wearing gas masks to filter out the toxic air, Osis, Hesha, and the three Restwell boys exited the Morchmobile to get a look at the scenery.

"You know, for a less breathable planet, Wayupinmee is really quite beautiful," Hesha commented as she scanned the majestic blue-rocked mountains.

"This would be a perfect world to atmosphere enhance," Osis began as he, too, enjoyed the panorama. "Just think how many former slaves could bask in a new life on a world such as this."

"If they ever get freed," Hesha said with a frown.

"As long as I'm alive I will see it happen." He turned to Hesha then the boys. "Thank you again for coming to my aid. I don't know what you all want to do from here, but if you ever need help in any endeavor just let me know."

"Well hey," Cordann spoke up, "if you were to give us a solid endorsement for our new business—"

"That's Restwell Mind and Pest Cleaners, sir," Neff put in for Osis' clarification.

"He knows that," Morch reminded Neff.

"Well just in case he forgot."

"Of course, I'll promote your business venture, boys," Osis assured with a positive expression. "Perhaps I can even help you expand your work force one day." He turned to focus on Hesha again. "And what about you, Hesha? What is it you would like to do with the rest of your life?"

Hesha smiled and then started with, "I was thinking of—"

"Getting your memory capped again," blared the halting voice of Putrak as he approached from behind the group. They all turned in shock to see that the assassin had Parn close at hand—and a gun to his head. Putrak finished, "That's what you were thinking for your immediate future."

Cordann uttered in dismay, "Holy nerk, Parn..."

"I'm sorry, guys..." Parn whimpered, "...I didn't see him coming."

"Nor did any of you," Putrak mocked the group. "Let that give you an indication of the type of professional your up against. Now... here's our situation, nerkheads: we're going to do an exchange. Hesha for your friend. If you refuse, he dies."

"But you want all of us dead anyway," Cordann countered. "Right? We've all been targeted."

"True, very true—and at some point I will take care of all of you. But right now the girl is the priority."

"Why?" Hesha wondered with a frown of alarm.

"New directive from your father. He's apparently very protective of you."

Feeling a surge of bravery, Parn blasted, "Don't do it, Hesha!"

Which immediately prompted Putrak to hit him upside the head with the gun. Parn blurted a sharp cry of pain. Then Putrak warned, "That's the last word from you, boy."

"Don't hurt him..." Hesha pleaded. "...I'll go with you." She moved toward Putrak and Parn and stood behind them, to the side. "Now please let him go."

Putrak did, pushing him away with force. Parn trotted reluctantly to stand by the others. "Now run along to my ship, girl," Putrak ordered, "I doubt you'll want to see the rest of this."

Alarmed, Hesha cried, "But you said—!"

"That was just to get you out of the kill zone. I need you alive for the job. Now run along."

"No..." Hesha protested in dread, mentally resisting the loss of all she held dear.

"Go, Hesha," Osis said, eyes heavy.

The boys verbally agreed—don't watch us die.

Hesha began to weep as she slowly turned and headed away toward Putrak's vessel.

When she was far enough away, Putrak announced, "Okay. All five of you on your knees with your hands locked behind your heads." Slowly they all did so. Parn was in tears. "It's okay to cry, son," Putrak mocked, "if I were that pathetic and useless, I would too."

Osis put to the assassin, "You sleep well at night, don't you?"

"Well, I wouldn't be good at my job if I didn't get a good night's rest."

"You realize your life has been pointless, don't you?"

"Senator, as far as pointless lives go, I've lived a pretty eventful one. Seen places and nerked plenty of the willing. But really, senator, it's all pointless when you think about it. All your efforts to achieve and build, it all goes eventually. You really thought you could shake up the galaxy—and make it see your way. When in reality you were just hastening your own end." Putrak cocked his gun and aimed precisely at Osis. "Speaking of which—"

And in an instant it happened!

Putrak's head burst on its left side with a gored, tunneling hole!

He fell slack to the ground and lay there in a twitching heap.

The five men were in total shock as they stared at the lifeless assassin.

But then they turned their eyes in unison to witness a lone figure approaching them from a distance. It was a young man, and a familiar face.

But not a welcome one.

Cordann lunged for Putrak's weapon but was abruptly deterred—as a tracer bullet smashed the gun out of grabbing range.

As Morski continued approaching and eyeing Putrak, he commented, "I sure as nerk knew where to hit you that time, didn't I, ol' timer?" He was grinning. "Back with the others, dear brother," he said to Cordann.

Cordann complied reluctantly, dejectedly. But he also covertly reached into his pocket to snatch a small device and hide it in his grasp. It was something he had used back at the hotel to remotely release some critters into the walling...

"Now back on your knees and hands locked behind your head like the others," Morski ordered. And Cordann did so, making sure to keep the remote release gadget hidden from his brother's sight.

"Well, well," Cordann said in a facetious tone, "look at you, little brother. Moving up in the world. From potential psychopath to bona fide, full fledged psychopath. Mom and pop would be proud."

"They're never going to know. Certainly not from you and your nerkhead, useless, moronic friends here. So the girl is on this dead heap's ship all secure and ready to be capped by the hypno on board. Your pathetic corpses will be stowed away on my ship... and I will be collecting lots of money... lots and lots of money."

"Well, you always were an industrious type, Mors. You and Kors. Hey tell me, little brother, did you feel one ounce of remorse for your twin when you were using his lifeless body as a shield?"

"Kors would have done the same. He wasn't a sentimental bissy like you and our head-in-the-clouds sister. Face it, Cor, you just didn't have what it took to survive in the Effen."

"Oh, no tears now, little brother," Cordann mocked as he hit the remote button...

"I'll try my best." He aimed firmer at Cordann... but became distracted as fast skittering sounds scraped behind him... "'The nerk was that...?" he questioned tensely. He didn't want to look away from his targets, but the skitters were increasing, becoming multiple sounds of clawed feet... "What is that?!"

And suddenly five whipfast creatures burst from the hatch of the Morchmobile!

Morski couldn't help but to snap a look now. Especially since one of the pesky, four-legged blurs came right at him!

As he spun and shot at the critter, Cordann rushed his brother and attempted to knock him over. Instead the critter was killed by a precision shot and Morski spun back to try and take his brother out. They struggled with each other in an attempt to control the gun.

The others followed after and quickly aided Cordann in overpowering Morski. Eventually they got the gun away from his grasp and threw him to the ground.

"Clever, brother," Morski said as he sat up. "You released those things somehow."

"Maybe I have what it takes after all," Cordann said as he caught his breath.

"Yeah, maybe... You know, big brother, yeah, I do miss Korski... especially at a time like this."

"Well, nobody does it alone. But unfortunately that's what you're now going to have to face on this planet. Good luck, little brother."

"Same to you, big brother."

They stared tensely at each other for a few seconds more. Then they left Morski by himself, taking all three ships into the stratosphere and into the vast cold of space.

Chapter 39

These were new costumes of disguise for the entourage heading to Dooshlodia. They were entirely different looks than the ones used before, and that was the point. No one should recognize them as anyone that had appeared in past ventures.

And the transport they used was also a new issue, switched from a Cuma Tar based freighter to a Cuma Nar freighter. A subtle difference in design but noticeable enough.

The ship in question landed in a hole in the wall, out of the way space port and the occupants exited to traverse the grounds. From there they took a dingy taxi to their destination: the massive home of Caradeen Blu and his wife, Betley. They were late in coming to the gathering already proceeding. But this was intended by the disguised ones—and Caradeen. The other parents of the Restwell four were to be surprised by the attendance of the latecomers. Surprised in more ways than one.

Chapter 40

Dooshlodia's most famous café and hangout spot in the Nature's Fresh sector was Dook E's. It was here that Cordann met up with his younger sister, Lania. She was a skinny thing and high voiced. And she loved Cordann. To which the brother appreciated and always returned in kind.

"Corbabe, give me a hug and sit down," Lania gushed with a smile.

He embraced her warmly then sat down at the table, faced his sister. The place was buzzing with the lunch crowd. "So where you been? Mom's been getting worried."

"I've been out of touch, I know," Cordann admitted. "Tell me what's going on at home. Anything out of the ordinary?"

"Naw, just the same old. Though Mors and Kors haven't been around either. Which is just fine with me."

A tense look fell on Cordann's face but he tried to push it back. "Mom and dad say anything about them?"

"No. Should they have?"

"...No, I supposed not..."

"Is everything okay with you?"

"...Listen... there are some things I'd like to tell you... but I'm not sure it's the best thing to do..."

"Did you fall for my friend, Bissa? She may be beautiful but she's a jisshead yitch—I mean she's my friend and all but she's still a total yitch—"

"No, it's not anything like that..." So naïve, so young, Cordann mused of his little sister. Only seventeen. "No... Lania, hon... sometimes I wonder about our family, I..."

"Did the 'Ski twins get into trouble? Are they in jail, is that it?"

"Korski's dead, Lania," Cordann blurted before he lost his nerve.

This silenced Lania for a brief time. "...How?"

Cordann took a breath. "He was... killed by a... monster—"

"A literal monster?"

"No, a man—a hitman—God, I shouldn't be telling you this, I just..."

"Why would a hitman want to kill Korski? Where's Morski, does he know?"

"Oh yeah, he was there."

"He was?" she uttered in dread. "But he's not dead...?"

"No... Lania, our brothers were trying to be contract killers, hitmen themselves. You didn't know about any of this, did you?"

"No, of course not, God..."

"I didn't think so, I just, ah... And I don't think our parents knew either—"

"Of course they didn't, they would have done something about it!"

"Easy, easy, I'm sure you're right, I... I'm sure you're right."

"Cor, what do you think our parents are, psychopaths?"

"They're not psychopaths, no... sociopaths maybe, I mean look at how self involved they are: mom with her garden, dad with his business..."

"Doesn't mean they're evil. Listen, our folks might not have been the best parental figures for us but they're still our parents. Mors and Kors aren't necessarily their fault."

"...You're probably right, you're probably right..."

"Why do I sense you're still not convinced?"

"Listen..." he began to rise as he put a hand to her arm. "...I've gotta go and find out about something. Promise me you won't go home until I know for sure, okay?"

"Okay... I guess. What do you have to do?"

"Just trust me, okay?" He kissed her forehead then hugged her once more. She hugged him back with hesitancy.

"Okay, you know I always have."

"I know. I'll see you soon."

"Yeah."

He departed leaving her confused. And uneasy.

Chapter 41

"My friends," Caradeen announced, "we've joined again because there are important matters to discuss. And quite soon our discussions will include a broader audience." The parents' brows creased in confusion and curiosity. "But before we reveal our surprise guests, I would like to get a certain matter out of the way. Cordann has still not surfaced, so I ask all of you now, have any of you heard from your sons?" They all answered no. "This must be some sort of offspring exodus because now I can't even reach my other boys."

"Well, is it really so surprising?" Peesha asked earnestly. "Dependence is something that most young adults wish to remove themselves from."

"Yes indeed," Excreesha agreed. "And the galaxy is a big place in which to get lost."

"Aren't you worried that something might have happened to them?" Cordann put to the female partners.

But it was Leff who answered, "Not really. We can't honestly think that at this point in their lives they're going to come running to us to ease every trouble."

"What?"

"Yes," Ishtinx agreed, "and what's the hurry anyway. It's not like we are retiring anytime soon. They'll come to us eventually."

Caradeen was speechless for an instant. "I can't believe what I'm hearing from you all."

Smeldus put in, "Besides, Care, we have much more pressing matters to talk about. Our new business venture..."

"Quite right," Peesha agreed. "And who these mystery guests might be."

Caradeen tightened his face in an effort to mentally switch gears. He certainly didn't feel that matters were resolved concerning the boys. But the parents had a point, the latecomers would be arriving soon. "Very well. As per your insistence, we are all now business partners in a venture that will net us hundreds of millions when all is said and done. The labor trade—"

"Let's just call it what it is, Care, the slave trade," Excreesha cut in.

"Okay, the slave trade if you must be so blunt. An uncomfortable and disreputable situation to be sure... But a necessary fact of the Effen Galaxy. So why shouldn't we take our pieces of the cake if the pieces are to be had, no?"

They all nodded in firm agreement.

"Which brings us to our mystery guests who are vital to securing our trade routes in this sector."

"You're kidding..." Leff uttered in rising awe.

"Indeed I am not. If you know me you know that I always get the job done and done right. They should be arriving any min—ah..." he left off as the doors opened to reveal the disguised ones. They approached and visually greeted the parents.

"Wait a minute, who are these people?" Leff asked with a grimace.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the Effen president, Goldin Rambidou and his Effen cabinet members. In disguise, of course."

Goldin, Naldon, Orso, and the other members of the cabinet pressed buttons on their coats; and their false guises split down the middle of their faces and pulled back to the sides of their heads! Now all were revealed as they truly appeared.

Goldin said to the parents with a smile, "Greetings, good folks of Dooshlodia. I'm excited to be bringing the traded to your sector of the galaxy. Are you ready for more money than you can possibly dream of?"

Cordann returned to the Morchmobile to confer with the others. Jadder and Semsa were also among the group. Semsa was anxious to get back to The Neb.

Jadder, of course, asked, "Did Lania asked about me?"

"...Sure," Cordann said to placate his odd cousin, but mentally he shuddered with disgust.

"Nice." Jadder nodded slowly in calm euphoria.

"So what did she say about your folks?" Neff asked. "Does she think they're bent too? Like they knew about your brothers?"

"She doesn't believe so... I guess I don't either," Cordann admitted. "Osis, maybe we should approach my parents, see if they can back us on getting the anti-slave laws put into action."

Osis reacted with, "Does your father have any affiliation with the Rambidou administration?"

"Not as far as I know."

"All right, I say we give it a try."

"Have we ironed out all the details to everyone's satisfaction?" Rambidou asked the room.

The parents signaled their agreeance with pleasant nods.

"Perfect," Rambidou beamed. "A toast! To our new business venture in your illustrious system!" He lifted his glass of ale as did everyone else.

And they all drank.

And the reaction to the poison in all of the parents' drinks—save for Cordann's—was sudden.

And terrifying to watch.

The parents choked, veins popped out on their necks and faces, their eyes bulged with shock and constriction! They all dropped their glasses and strapped hands to their own necks. Smashes of glasses were heard about the room. And as this was happening, the poisoned ones buckled and swayed, slowly faltering to the floor.

In under a minute they were a slumped pile, pale and deceased.

Calmly, jovially, Caradeen commented, "I believe that shows my commitment to owning this sector."

Rambidou smiled. "I'm impressed with your resolve, Caradeen. It appears we've found the right man for our expansion—"

"WHAT THE NERK!!!" came the bellowing, shocked voice of Morch as Osis and the others entered the room.

Rambidou, Caradeen, and the cabinet members all turned in surprise to witness the new arrivals.

"Father?!" Cordann blasted in disbelief. And in the next instant rushed at Caradeen in a fury. The elder Blu backed up a few steps in instinctive apprehension. But finally Cordann reached his father and clenched both fists to his collar. And shouted, "What the nerk have you done?!"

Caradeen couldn't speak in his dread.

"Caradeen, I trust you will handle this matter," Goldin announced as he and his entourage headed for the exit. "We must be going." They all reactivated the disguises and their faces closed to different appearances.

But Osis still knew which one was Goldin, and confronted him with, "You're not going anywhere! You and your cronies here will answer for what you have just done—just as you will answer for your involvement in the Effen slave trade!"

"Oh Osis," Goldin condescended, "where's your indisputable proof that I had anything to do with the untimely deaths of these poor souls? And where's your documented proof that I have any connection to the rumored slave trade? Where, I ask?"

"My attempted assassination, for one!"

"Someone tried to assassinate you? I'm shocked."

"I'm sure you are," Osis hissed.

And Hesha also knew who her father was under his disguise. "You want proof of the slave trade?! Father, you know I'm the proof!"

Orso growled, "Hesha, silence!"

"No! Not anymore! Never again! Osis and I and those who believe in him won't be silenced!"

"Then I can't protect you from what's coming—!"

"Orso, say no more," Cut in Rambidou. "We're leaving, that's it." And they fled quickly from the room.

While this was taking place, Cordann kept pounding his father with, "Why?! Why?!"

But suddenly Caradeen viciously broke free from his son's tight grasp. "I don't need to explain anything to you, you weak, pathetic... All right, you listen! They were trying to take what wasn't theirs, they were trying to muscle me! No one does that! No one does that to me and gets away with it!"

"So you had them killed?!" Cordann asked in horror.

As the father and son loudly quarreled, the other Restwell boys went to their fallen parents, kneeled down to them, and mourned in the dawning knowledge that they would never know them again. All three boys wept openly. Hesha, from her vantage point, joined them in tears.

Caradeen continued to defend, "You can't just make threateners go away, Cordann! Eventually they will find their way back to you, more spiteful and greedy than before! I had to do this! They sealed their own fate!"

"...You're psychotic..." Cordann uttered. "... I never... I never knew you at all."

"Well, the weak always see what they want to see. Perhaps this is your wake-up call to the real world, boy."

"Move aside, Cordann," Parn tensely yet calmly ordered. He as well as Morch and Neff were standing side by side. All now staring with murderous eyes on Caradeen.

But Cordann stood his ground as he turned to confront his friends. "Wait... wait, wait, hold on—"

"Move aside, Cor," Morch said.

"Just get out of the way, Cor," Neff mirrored.

Cordann's eyes bugged. "Wait—just wait!" He shot out a hand in a stop gesture toward the boys.

"You see, Cordann?" Caradeen said. "You're friends have become men before your very eyes. Willing to do what has to be done. Now the question remains: will the rest of you allow it to happen? Or are your misguided principles not up for sale?"

"Wait—WAIT! Just everyone STOP for a minute!"

The three murder-minded boys moved closer to Cordann and Caradeen.

"What's it going to be, boy?" Caradeen pressed.

"Yeah, Cor, what's it going to be?" Morch repeated as he and the other boys kept approaching. Their faces tremored with rage.

"Friends or family, boy?!"

And then something snapped in Cordann.

He swung about and slammed a hardened fist into his father's face. A loud crack was heard. Caradeen fell back and to the floor, an unconscious heap.

A tight fury was etched in Cordann's eyes as he stared down at his father. "They are my family," he gritted out.

The other boys stood beside him and joined in at the tense gaze upon Caradeen.

Neff announced, "We'll wait until he wakes up... and then we kill him."

But suddenly Hesha bounded into view in front of them. "Boys, think it through. He can't get away with this, the authorities will be notified and he'll be indicted. And Osis will back us on what has happened here. He'll get life in prison for this."

"That's too good for him," Parn said in a haze of anger.

"Yeah," Morch agreed, "and what if he somehow gets off on a technicality? I can't sit with that."

Hesha turned her eyes to Neff. "Neff, you and I have been friends a long time. I know you're hurting bad, but—"

"No, we haven't, Hesh."

"What? Yes we have—"

"It's not real, Hesha! I implanted that suggestion in your mind during hypnosis! We didn't know each other before that!"

This took Hesha aback, off guard. Her eyelids blinked a few times, her balance faltered slightly. "...Well... Well what difference does it make? You're my good friend now! All of you! You're the start of my revolution, remember?! What good will you be to all of those people out there suffering every day if you're rotting in prison for murder?!"

Suddenly the vicious stares of the four boys broke a bit, their eyes descended slightly more.

Hesha gently continued, "Senator Osis needs your help. I need your help."

"She's right, boys," Osis firmly concurred from behind the others. "You know she's right. And he'll pay for what he's done. I'll see to it. I know people in the judicious sector."

For a brief and tense moment the boys were silent. Then Morch finally said to Cordann, "He's your father... we'll let you decided what to do with him."

"Really?" Cordann uttered.

"Yeah," answered Neff and Parn.

There was another silent pause, then Cordann said, "I've got an idea."

Chapter 42

When Caradeen had come to he was strapped to a chair aboard the Morchmobile. His head ached with a dull thud as he tried to adjust to his surroundings. Slowly his vision moving from seeing a blurry double to a solid oneness. Many were facing him.

One of them, his son, spoke, "Comfy, dear old pops?"

"Not really, no," Caradeen admitted.

"Good. Then we made it tight enough. You're going to sit there and listen to us.

"As you might imagine, Neff here as well as the rest of us would seriously like to tear you apart... Instead he's agreed to do something which might help us all achieve our goals."

"Whatever it is, you're wasting your time. You think Osis here will just snap his fingers and bend the galaxy to his liking—?"

"You're going to help. Or I'm going to allow my friends here to go to work on you with a couple of shockinaters."

"And just what is it you think I can do?"

"Well first you're going to allow Neff to hypnotize you into being the man you should be: a man of integrity, you filthy nerk."

"And if I become this 'man of integrity,' you realize that this family will go bankrupt. Our holdings are already in jeopardy and competition is fierce, boy. You think a corporation survives on your notion of integrity? Think again."

Nonplussed, Cordann repeated, "You will be hypnotized. And then you will be strongly compelled to go to Wayupinyu and get in good with Rambidou. All the while gathering pertinent information that can be used to implicate him and his staff—not only in the slave trade but in the attempted assassination of the senator here, and the murders of my friends' parents. Then you're also going to freely turn yourself in and admit to your participation in these crimes."

"You're forgetting one important factor in your plan, though it's not surprising. You never have thought things through in your life."

"Oh, and what is that?"

"I have to be willing to be hypnotized, don't I?" His tone was mocking.

"You know, you're right on that." He turned to Morch.

Morch produced a small syringe that looked more like a sprayer. He placed it near Caradeen's eyes and said, "I really wish that we could administer this with a big giant needle. But at least it stings a bit." He sprayed the contents of the syringe into Caradeen's eyes . Caradeen jammed them shut, grunting a pained squeal. "I'm sorry, did I say 'a bit'? I meant big time."

The elder man struggled with the searing pain to his eyes for a minute longer. Then he began to relax considerably.

Cordann commented, "The compound we just gave you is a relaxant that first blinds a critter we're trying to subdue; then makes them more compliant psychologically. Very useful in our trade.

"Now, try to calm yourself as much as possible. Allow Neff to talk to you and hear what he has to say."

It took a few seconds more, then Caradeen managed a nod. His eyes blinked rapidly, still adjusting to the spray. Soon it was less of a problem, however.

Neff moved in close to the bound man. And breathed in a deep, bracing breath, let it out. He didn't relish being close to this piece of filth. "Are you listening to me, Mr Blu?" he managed as passive as he could.

"Yes," Caradeen replied.

"Good. Let's begin."

And Neff had done it. Successfully hypnotized Caradeen, despite the boy's severe hatred for the man.

In the process of braintricking, Neff managed to do two things. One, he brought out the good side of Caradeen, which no doubt was in small supply these days. But through Neff's hypnotic manipulation he was able to amplify it, bring it to the forefront, staple it as a top psychological priority. Caradeen's more selfish and ruthless side was conversely made less of a neural objective; an aspect easily overridden by conscience and empathy.

Two, Neff instilled the man with the firm directive to infiltrate Goldin's cabinet staff and gather crucial information. Unfortunately it would still have to look like Caradeen was working to establish a slave trade in the Dooshlodian sector. But it was hoped by Osis and the others that their plan would work before any real trade was put into play.

A key part of the plan entailed Caradeen discovering when the next big meet with the slaver heads of distribution would take place. And to see if Jadder could alter that meeting with the right cyber infiltration codes.

Everything must be timed and planned just right....

Chapter 43

The secret meeting was set, and the two parties were prepared. The covert and secluded conference spot was an abandoned warehouse on Wayupinyu. A last minute change of plans from the usual spot in the abandoned monastery twenty miles away—which had reportedly become compromised.

In their recently adopted disguises, Goldin and his crew of cronies entered the warehouse.

The slavers consisted of five sector divisional heads: Curkaine from Anolbeedia, Nodis from Shaftlonger, Butro from Shlongenvee, Neelus from Exrementia, and Constipashun from Blokloder. As per usual, all five heads were in attendance as the meeting convened in earnest.

Curkaine, a boisterous sort, always began with, "Hey, hello, hi, good business, good days, all are well, yes?"

Goldin smiled officiously at the slavers. Then he split apart his face disguise and replied, "Business is very well. So well that we're ready to expand into new territory."

Neelus offered, "Dooshlodia seems like a nice place to start. But it begs the question: Can you provide the sufficient amount of trained security for your sector, Caradeen?"

Caradeen split apart his face disguise as well and retorted, "I've contracted a team from the underworld of Excrementia. A crew I'm sure you're familiar with, The Shadycacks."

"I am, yes. They're a reliable bunch and very good. But they don't come cheap. Will you still be able to turn a profit of sizeable sum?"

"Rest assured, gentlemen, I've got it worked out."

"Caradeen has my full backing, as you know, gentlemen," Goldin beamed. "But expansion, of course, is not our only concern. We know you all had problems with slave uprisings in your respective sectors."

"Yes," Constapashun tightly agreed. "It's seems to be more and more of a problem as this Binarian fellow continues to gain ground on his anti-slavery platform."

"Why hasn't this guy been snuffed out yet?!" Butro protested to the room, mostly at Goldin though.

"There have been some unforeseen delays. Now that he knows we're targeting him, he's gone dark. We'll find him soon," Goldin assured.

"Well, kill some of his staff at least."

"The galaxy is watching very closely now. We must proceed with a measure of caution, but I give you my word we will rectify this situation. I'm not about to lose my seat at the Effen big table because of this upstart senator."

"And what of this other security matter? Curkaine asked. "The one concerning the girl."

"She has been found," Orso responded, separating his disguise face as well. "Found and memory capped once more. She won't be any more of a problem for us."

"But wasn't she capped before? What if she relapses again?"

"We've taken special precautions this time around. If someone tries to get it out of her through hypnosis, they will only find a gibberish of information."

Neelus callously put in, "Why don't you simply tear out the information from her mind?"

"Because it could have serious other side effects in her neural connections. Trust me, gentlemen, the situation is well in hand."

"Well if it isn't for some unseen reason," Nodis warned, "Then we'll charge you with taking her out—permanently."

"...Agreed."

Chapter 44

Goldin Rambidou and his equally disguised cabinet members entered their usual meeting ground of an abandoned monastery and faced the slavers. All five of the slave heads were in attendance—Neelus, Curkaine, Butro, Constapashun, and Nodis.

Curkaine naturally greeted with, "Hey, hello, hi, good business, good day, all are well?"

Rambidou gave back, "It couldn't be otherwise, my esteemed colleagues. Thank you for coming."

"Our pleasure," Nodis said. "What's the news on our expansion plans?"

Goldin separated his face disguise and said, "Everything is proceeding as planned. Caradeen here..." Caradeen revealed himself from his disguise and nodded. "...will have the proper security measures and regulations in play for when the transfer of labor begins."

"About that," Neelus began, "the others and I have been discussing new ways to regulate our workers—in light of the recent uprisings."

"We're all ears," Goldin beamed.

"We've been talking," Butro added, "of introducing a compliance drug into our stock which will make them far less rebellionistic."

"What will it do to their stamina, strength? We don't want productivity to suffer."

"The effect is negligible on their circulatory abilities... thus far anyway."

"It is only an idea at this point that we thought worth discussing with you," Constapashun amended.

"The other idea we came up with," Neelus said, "is, seeing the revenue streams that come in for new weapons to secure stock made us think."

"Right," Curkaine agreed and added, "we think we should be getting in on some of that generous stream."

"...I see..." Goldin walked around slowly a bit, contemplating. "...You realize this could ruffle some of the wrong feathers. I'm for making more money, of course—"

"Well, the way we see it, it's necessary. That way we can oversee the effectiveness of the weapons manufacturing. Twice now our security forces have been injured because of faulty weaponry."

"I could hire you a weapons tech."

"Are you not on the same page with us, Rambidou?" Butro asked tensely. "We want to make more money, not less."

"Gentlemen..." Nelkin spoke up. "...let's keep it civil and respectful."

Chapter 45

"Now," Curkaine announced, "it appears we have everything in hand for this meeting. Let's reconvene, shall we say, in another month's time?"

"That sounds fine with me," Rambidou agreed.

"Perfect. We shall see you then. Good business, good day to you all."

And the five slave leaders began for the door...

"Oh wait, gentlemen," Rambidou said before their exit, "there is one more thing..."

And from the door itself an in-pouring of judicial security forces arrived on the scene. And pointed weapons at the five slave heads.

"What the nerk is this?!" Butro protested.

"Something long overdue," Osis Binarian stated strongly as he split apart his inner "Rambidou" disguise to reveal his true self.

Orso, or what looked like Orso, split away his as well—showing himself as an actual judicial investigator of The High Effen Court.

The Nelkin face separated into another investigator.

Caradeen's into a judicial officer, Aldo, another officer.

"My suggestion," Osis said to the slavers, "is that you not make any sudden moves."

Chapter 46

The mood appeared to be quite tense in the abandoned warehouse as the real Rambidou stared down the slavers.

"Of course..." Butro began with grit—then eased into, "...it was just something we've been kicking around."

"Well let me think it over, gentlemen," Rambidou conceded over the weapons suggestion. "Wade through all the angles involved."

"Couldn't hurt," Neelus said. "We all want more money; on that we can always agree."

The men laughed a bit in their shared obsession of wealth.

And then Curkaine said, "Well, the five of us can surely agree that this can't go on any longer."

Still chuckling lightly, Rambidou's brow creased in confusion. "...I'm sorry?"

And flooding through the warehouse came judicial security forces with weapons poised on Rambidou and his cabinet members.

Curkaine's face split apart to the true one of Cordann. The other slave heads now abandoned their face disguises to reveal the determined looks of Morch, Parn, Neff, and Hesha.

"You should be," Cordann answered Rambidou, "though I'm sure you never will for what you've done to the galaxy."

Caradeen, the real one, now entered the warehouse and faced the shocked president.

Rambidou blasted to him, "Caradeen, what the nerk is all this?! I thought you handle these little sharts!"

With sympathetic eyes, Caradeen explained, "I had planned to, Mr. President, believe me I had. But then my son and his friends made me see the error of my ways."

"Oh really?" Rambidou said with mock sincerity. "Well... allow me to make you see the error of your ways..." He pressed a button on his lapel and spoke into a mini-comm unit: "Take her."

A transmitted, trebled voice came back with, "Yes, Mr. President."

"What was that about? Who were you talking to? Take who?"

"Why your precious daughter, Mr. Blu. You didn't think I'd enter into a business agreement without some measure of assurance, did you?"

"Lania," Cordann blurted in horror.

"That's right, boy. I didn't get where I am without covering all the angles. Though that was a good little bit there that you and your little friends created, I have to admit. But you're clearly out of your depth, all of you.

"Now... my cabinet members and I are going to walk out of here unaccosted and free to roam. Oh—and any sort of recording devices you have, I guarantee cannot record or transmit. I have implanted a jammer in my body—so you genuinely have nothing on me. If you pursue this matter in any way in the future, your sweet, little Lania will have the most unspeakable things done to her. Are we clear...? Are we clear?"

Cordann and Caradeen both forced a pained "Yes" in response.

"Good. Come on, gentlemen," he said to his staff, "it's time to go. "Oh—and give my regards to Osis, would you?" he gave with a mocking grin.

And they left.

Unaccosted.

Free to roam.

Chapter 47

Dooshlodia offered up a somewhat overcast and grayish skyline to permeate the mood of the day. Although pockets of sun managed to ray down wherever they could.

The Morchmobile had just landed in The Whetkiss Space Landing Port and the hatch door opened. Cordann and Caradeen shot out of it and raced toward a waiting Lania and Bettley. They all embraced in a desperately close circle.

The rest—Morch, Parn, Neff, Hesha, and Osis—exited at a slower walking pace and observed the tightly hugged family.

"She's free," Hesha noted of Lania.

"She is and she isn't," Osis clarified with a grave tone. "Goldin will have her movements watched from now on."

"And they could take her anytime, couldn't they?" Neff added.

"In order to secure Goldin's freedom? Of course. We would never know exactly when or how."

"But we got the slavers!" Hesha reminded. "We got those rastards," she said with satisfaction.

"We have dealt a blow for the Effen slave trade, yes. We can celebrate on that. But there's still work to be done..." Osis turned to Hesha and offered, "I could use some dedicated help, Hesha. What do you say?"

She brightened considerably in her face and returned, "Holy shart, yes! Absolute, as my friend would say."

"Good. Now it doesn't pay that well—but the travel is nice sometimes."

"So is the company," she said to him and smiled toothily.

He smiled just as much back then eyed the other boys. "What about you clever, industrious young men, would you like to join the fight as well? I could always use your determined spirit."

"Well, thanks for the offer, senator," Neff responded heartily, "but I think we're going to give Restwell Cleaners another go."

"Yeah," Parn added, "let's just say you guys have inspired us to not give up on a dream so easily."

Morch chimed in with, "But we would still appreciate any sort of endorsement you could give us, Mr. Binarian."

Grinning again, Osis gave back to them, "Oh, absolute... is that right? Absolute? Anyway, I told you, you have my support and you have it. Whatever you boys need.

"You know, I'm reminded of those old motion stories that were found in a capsule from some unknown galaxy. The one where four industrious young men such as yourselves hunt ghoulish spirits. And the song in it that sang, 'Who are you going to call?' Well, you guys could maybe use that, that would be a catchy calling card, as they say."

"Yeah," Hesha added brightly, "only in your case you can say, 'Who ya gonna holotrans?!' or something like that!"

The three boys stared at one another, considering the suggestion with serious, thoughtful expressions...

And soon a unifying smile crept on all three of their faces. Together they all bellowed, "Who ya gonna holo?! RESTWELL!"

