[You’ve reached Mars & Guildenstern Investments, Gwin Jepson speaking.] A high-pitched feminine voice resounded from Rhona’s Holo-Comm Device.

“Hi. I have an account registered under this ID,” Rhona swiped her finger over a hologram on the device, and then continued, “I’m calling to inquire about the current trend in JFC stock price.”

[Please hold while I transfer you to your dedicated broker.]

Following a quick 5 seconds, a huskier male voice came from the other end of the call.

[Hey Rhona! What’s crackin’! The client was singin’ praises about y’all! They kept askin’ me again and again if you guys were actually insiders from Arc E&B! Anywho, you lookin’ for another job?] The voice spoke excitedly.

“Hey, Samson. I wanted to inform you that we’re now open to unregistered, high-payout contracts as well,” Rhona replied monotonously.

[Unregistered? Why so anxious all of a sudden?] Samson probed gently.

In an irritated tone, Rhona rebutted, “You doing it or not?”

Generally, the contracts and jobs were divided into two categories: registered and unregistered. These categories correspond to the guarantees provided by the client to the fixer.

If a contract is registered it generally means that the agent, who is the intermediary, has already surveyed the specifics of the contract and handled most of the logistical aspects of the job. While these jobs are safer, they also have a lower payout since the agent gets a significant cut.

Unregistered jobs mean that the agent has minimal contact with the job. They essentially act as the bridge that connects the client to the fixer. The agent will then only receive the referral commission and nothing more.

While most contracts operate in a morally grey area, unregistered jobs tend to skirt into the immoral territory more often. And because of that, the pay associated with unregistered jobs have a loose ceiling. On the other hand, with registered jobs, the agent would have already performed the due diligence to reduce any possible repercussions and thus will have a lower payout.

[Chill! Alright, I got it. I’ll let you know if something promisin’ slides across my desk. Are y’all lookin’ to emigrate?]

Without bothering to reply, Rhona quickly ended the call, “Bye!”

Rhona swivelled her chair around and faced Simon, who was typing away at his computer.

“Are we really leaving this planet?” She asked, with a glimmer of excitement in her eyes.

Simon slowed down and pondered slowly, “We’ve outgrown this place. I think it’s time to find a larger pond. Don’t you?”

Rhona nodded enthusiastically, like a chicken pecking at grains. Just yesterday, Simon announced that he and his siblings were planning to emigrate out of Eaton I, and asked if the others in Room 2307 were interested in following along.

When she heard that, Rhona was extremely elated. For one, the planet represented the lowest point for her and her companions. Losing family, facing abandonment, getting scammed and exploited. The orphans had to essentially wade through the muck - the filth that festered at the lowest levels of society - to get to where they were currently. And while they were now living a satisfying life, the struggles that they faced in the past had morphed into a parasitic shadow that constantly fed their paranoia and urged them to move forward by any means necessary. This was especially true for people like Rhona, Rhys and Colin.

On the other hand, Byron had already come to terms with everything. He was exposed to the underbelly of modern society from a very young age. Having worked under his father, who ran a prolific chop shop, Byron had learned the ins and outs of the streets after interacting with the rich tapestry of gang culture. In fact, he knew right from the moment he set foot into the shop floor what kind of life his father had subscribed to. And so, when he eventually lost his father he accepted it almost immediately. Byron had learned that to survive in this world, you needed to adapt. Hence when Simon brought up emigration, Byron agreed without a second of hesitation. Because he knew that he could remain in Eaton and survive, but if he wanted to thrive then he’d have to grab onto Simon’s limp thighs, metaphorically.

The triplets had another reason to emigrate. Over the past few days, the seeds of revenge planted by Simon had sprouted and were deeply ingrained into their psyche. The three were motivated to leave this planet and stick it to Zarro Consolidated. After a series of discussions, Simon had presented a feasible plan of action to his siblings that involved taking a few high paying jobs, accumulating wealth, gaining power while whittling at their opponent, and finally striking at an opportune moment. Basically, something right out of generic revenge themed drama.

Simon’s hope was to elongate the process so that his siblings would eventually become bored and move on. Or until they realised that attacking a monolith such as Zarro Consolidated was a fool’s errand. Either way, Simon was content knowing that his siblings were back to their regular selves.

And finally, Simon didn’t really hold any opinions. He never had wild ambitions, only a thirst. Nowadays he found the jobs available in the market to be simple chores. Many times he was tempted to simply offload it to Colin and Rhona. And to an extent, this was also one of the reasons Simon fed his siblings his particular version of the truth. It provided a convenient reason to leave these shallow waters.

Raúl Hernández was suffering. He was only 40 years old, but he was already showing signs of balding. The worst part was that it was definitely not genetic!

Born to a middle-class family in a Rank 2 system, he was indoctrinated into the common idea of advancement through hard work. He studied diligently through his early education, gained admission with full scholarship into an affluent business management-centric university, and graduated with honours at record speed. He worked tirelessly in multiple companies through internships, part-time, and contract work, and had finally made it into Nova Corp. as an Assistant Manager in the PR department.

Following another arduous 4 years, he showcased his go-getter attitude and focused work ethic, and captured the attention of a prominent board member. He thought that his time had finally come. He was finally going to hit the big leagues!

But his dreams were summarily shattered when the board member supplanted Raúl’s immediate supervisor and replaced him with his nephew. That was the first time Raúl experienced nepotism, and ironically in its most literal sense.

The board member’s true purpose in reaching out to Raúl was to cultivate a subservient follower for his nephew. And in the years that followed, Raúl experienced the worst that the corporate world had to offer. His career had essentially stagnated. All his successes were attributed to his supervisor, and his and his supervisor’s failures were attributed to him alone. At first, Raúl held out, with hope that his sacrifices would be noted by the board member and would gain him some benefits. But he realised that his ‘benefactor’ was pulling him along, keeping him at arm’s length.

What tipped Raúl off the edge, was learning that the same board member had cultivated similar corporate ‘slaves’ across various levels and departments, over a long period of time, to support people that he had planted all across the organisational tree. If anything, it was an attempt at a takeover! One that moved at a snail’s pace. With a spark of inspiration, Raúl decided to expose this to the higher-ups as a whistleblower.

The revelation completely shook the company to its core, resulting in multiple lay-offs and restructuring. What Raúl didn’t know was that the board already knew about the particular board member’s so-called ‘plan’, and were just entertaining his antics. It was a stupid idea in the first place! But now that the issue was brought to light, any inaction would simply be viewed as negligence. And so they advertised taking drastic measures, while behind the smoke and mirrors they enacted one of their multiple backup plans.

Raúl was on cloud nine! He was awaiting a promotion or some form of accolade. However, his naïve self failed to realise that his attempt to pull rank had rubbed his superiors the wrong way. Who would want to be associated with a backstabber?

Therefore, he was relocated to one of Nova Corp.’s branches in a Rank 3 system. Every time he inquired about a promotion or advancement, he was relocated again. He bounced around branches and even other subsidiary companies.

Eventually, he was pulled out by Jeremiah Obiekwe, and assigned as his son’s personal assistant. As to why he was selected? Jeremiah wanted someone to keep an eye on his offspring. To him, Raúl, the man who didn’t hesitate to snitch on his superiors, was the perfect minion to keep his son accountable. What Jeremiah didn’t realise was that through Raúl’s experience in what he could only call his personal purgatory, Raúl had gained a broader view of society. He realised how stupid he was to believe that he could rise above his stature. He had become a completely different man. His new motto was to ‘do as you are told, and survive.’ A rather bleak outlook on life, but one that had kept him going for the past 5 years in his current job.

Swallowing his displeasure, Raúl started to contact various agents native to the planet in accordance with Raymond’s order. Through an extensive search, he had failed to find satisfactory results. None of the agents and fixers he’d found showed any promise or capability. Although he had advanced technology at hand, without capable people to use them it would be the same as getting a Warp Drive fixed by a toddler. While he had already expected this outcome his subconscious hard-working attitude refused to yield until the end.

Following multiple calls and emails, he learned of an agent with a high success rate and contacted him through a secure channel.

[You’ve reached Mars & Guildenstern Investments, Gwin Jepson speaking.]

Raúl furrowed his brows and cursed internally at the unnecessarily clandestine ritual to connect to the agent. He spoke precisely, “Hi. I am calling to open a new account, and inquire about the current trend in JFC stock price.”

[Please hold while I transfer you to your dedicated broker.]

Following a quick 5 seconds, a husky male voice spoke informally from the other end of the call. [Yo! It’s Samson.]

Raúl’s eyes twitched as he attempted to calm his growing urge to reach into the Holo-Comm Device and choke the man.

“I want to register a contract for a job.”

[Yea no shit! What’s the specifics?]

Raúl paused and took a deep breath. “Theft of proprietary prototype. I cannot go into the specifics remotely.”

[Relax! You’ve been transferred to an encrypted protocol. Don’t waste my time! Get on with it!]

Raúl spoke with hesitance, “I need to infiltrate Halcyon Inc. and extract a Meka prototype they’re currently working on?”

[The hell are you talkin’ about? Ain’t no one heard of Halcyon developin’ a new prototype here. Why’d they even do it in this shit hole?]

“According to my sources, they have an off-the-books facility in the endless desert.”

[Shit, really? Who’s the source? I guess I need a new guy hahaha.]

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.”

[You’re talkin’ like a corporate yuppie. No wonder. I’d have known about it otherwise.] The hoarse voice mumbled.

Raúl was growing impatient. “Can you do it or not?”

[Yup Yup! Give me the details.]

“We’re willing to offer a million Bits in advance payment, and following the successful mission we are willing to pay price equivalent to the market cost of the prototype Meka.”

A long whistle resounded from the communication device. [Shit that’s a lot! Means that you’re expectin’ the job to be hard. I guess it’s gonna be unregistered too?] Samson paused expecting a reply, but he continued, [Brings up a question. Why are you hirin’ locally? I would have gone with guys from outside. Better equipment, better work ethic. You know? The whole shebang!]

Raúl quickly cobbled up a suitable response to that obvious question, “We need it to be discreet. We can’t afford to alert our competitors.”

[Hmm hmm. You want disposables,] The man said sarcastically. But before Raúl could refute, although half-heartedly, the man continued, [Fine. I have a group perfect for this operation. Seeing as you aren’t willin’ to disclose any more information to me I’ll send you their contact details. Keep in mind that the finder’s fee is 10%, and I’ll send you the account details with their contacts. Oh and a word of advice, I wouldn’t pull anythin’ funny with these guys. They may look young, but they don’t fuck around hehehehe…]

Without waiting to hear a confirmation, the call ended. Following that, Raúl’s device lit up as a series of messages flooded in. As he swiped through the notifications from the agent, his finger stopped on top of a contact card with the name ‘Vagabond’ on it.

“Simon! Samson’s found us a job! Shit! A million Bits in advance!” Rhona exclaimed.

Simon looked at her and raised in eyebrows, indicating for her to continue.

“The client hasn’t uploaded much with regards to the job’s details. It’s about infiltrating and stealing a new Meka prototype from a Halcyon research facility.” Following the final sentence, Rhona quickly pounced onto her computer and ran a quick search. After that, her forehead wrinkled further.

“Since when did Halcyon have a research facility on this planet?” She muttered.

Byron walked up to Rhona and picked up her communication device. “The client says that it’s legitimate, and they even put up a hefty sum as pay, so it must be true. The facility must be really off-the-books, didn’t we sweep Halcyon’s data banks just two months ago?” He then looked at Simon for a response.

“We’ll know more once we talk to the client,” Simon responded. And almost on queue, their communication device dedicated to clientele started ringing. Since it was Rhona’s responsibility to coordinate with clients, she answered after waiting for 4 seconds.

An arrogant and curt salutation reached out from the device. [Fixer group Vagabond?]

To that, Rhona responded with equal curtness, “Yes!”

That was followed by an extended pause. Raúl hadn’t expected the recipient to be equally arrogant.

[Did you receive the contract details?]

“That’s an overstatement! You basically posted a single sentence with a huge price tag attached,” Rhona responded with an overtone of irritation.

[We cannot afford to disseminate excess information. It is highly classified.]

“Alright, so where exactly is the research facility? We’ve never heard anything of it before.”

Silence followed that question. Raúl spoke in a low volume, [We don’t know…]

In response, Rhona sighed in exasperation. “If you don’t know where the facility is, how do you expect us to break in?”

[Locating the facility is part of the contract. The pay is quite generous. By the way, before we move forward. Are you even accepting the contract? I don’t want to waste my time.]

To that, Rhona turned towards Simon. Simon pondered on it for a moment and nodded. Rhona gained a boost of confidence. “Wasting YOUR time? What you’re doing is basically pointing in a general direction, claiming a dead body is hidden there solely based on the fact that you noticed a faint rotting smell! We need to renegotiate the pay. We don’t involve ourselves in a wild goose chase!”

Through gritted teeth, Raúl retorted, [Ha! Do you think you’re in the position to negotiate?]

With utmost confidence, Rhona rebutted, “Yes! There is no one on this planet better than us. And that is a fact! And don’t give me the spiel of fetching fixers from outside the planet. If you could do that, you wouldn’t need to look for local fixers. You can search all you want. But know this: If you receive a call from you afterwards, the pay will be doubled.”

Following a 5 second pause, a resolute voice spoke from the communication device [1.25 million for the initial deposit is as far as I can go. We cannot renegotiate the price following the retrieval of the Meka… if there is one. If not, then the pay will depend on the quality and quantity of the information extracted from the facility.]

Rhona smirked, and replied, “We’re looking forward to doing business with you. In a minute, we will transfer an encrypted package to your mail containing pertinent information from our end. In it, we have also included a form. Fill it up and send it back through the same channel. We will proceed once we receive the filled form.” And switched off the communication channel.

With immense excitement, Rhona exclaimed out loud, “We’ve hit it big you guys!”

Everyone in Room 2307 cheered and celebrated. However, Simon remained as calm as ever. His mind was spinning at a high velocity. The task was unusually vague and high-paying. His instincts blared out loud. It was definitely trouble! He’d have to tread carefully…