Jason King: Agent to the Stars 1: The Enclaves of Sylox

by T. R. Harris

  So Miranda’s people didn’t like me snooping around, up to and including the point where they’d resort to kidnapping to make their point. Kidnapping – or Unlawful Detainment as it was called here – was a serious crime on Sylox, as it was on Earth, so this made me think these people were a little more serious than I’d first thought.

  Now, as I looked around the room, I wasn’t really scared. I’d been trained to handle things a lot worse than this. Besides, I didn’t know anything. Miranda was a mystery to me, and if her people wanted me to back off trying to find her, well, you didn’t have to ask me twice. I wasn’t anxious to find her in the first place.

  I was alone in the room and growing more impatient by the second. I had things to do today, including a closing at three. I just wished whoever abducted me would come in and get this over with.

  “Hey, I’m awake!” I yelled out. “And I’m ready to answer your questions! Can anyone hear me?”

  Silence was my answer.

  Even though I was strapped to the cot, I was still able to see the dial on my watch. It was Mid-0:32, or twelve thirty-two. I was sure I would need a change of clothes and to put some ointment on the flash burn before the closing, so I figured I had to be out of here by one, one-fifteen at the latest.

  I called out again. “Hey, dickwad, I don’t have all day! Let’s get this interrogation going. I can’t wait to spill my guts, tell ya everything I know, and then some!”

  Finally the door to the cold room opened and two men entered, who were clichés themselves. Both had dark complexions, with coarse black beards. They wore functional khaki-colored pants and short-sleeve shirts, and each carried a compact MK-24 flash-repeater weapon.

  “Why don’t you shut up, big-mouth.” The taller and fatter of the pair said.

  “But if I shut up, how can you get any information out me? I’m ready to talk. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  My two captors exchanged confused looks.

  “We don’t want to know anything, at least not yet,” said the second kidnapper.

  “If not now, then when?” I asked, truly concerned. “C’mon, ask me anything. I’m an open book.”

  My two guards looked at each other again.

  “I have nothing to hide, so you’re just delaying the enviable. The sooner you get to the questioning, the sooner we can all go home, both kidnappers and kidnappee.”

  Just then another being entered the room. This one was an alien. I’d seen his kind before on the streets, but I didn’t know the name of the species. He was a typical Prime, almost to the point of being a Human clone. But the hard-looking plates growing along each side of his face, along with the excessive amount of gray-colored hair on his head and arms, definitely classified this thing as an alien, and an old one at that. I watched as the two Human thugs deferred to his leadership.

  “Lift him up.”

  The Human lackeys untied my restraints, allowing me to sit up on the cot. My hands were still bound at the wrist in front of me but my legs were free. Obviously, these wannabes thugs hadn’t read the gangster manual on how to secure a potentially dangerous captive. I gauged the distance and relative positions of the each of my kidnappers, just in case I ran into a time crunch for my closing.

  “You have been searching for a Human called Miranda Moore,” the alien stated.

  “That’s right, but not anymore. I can tell that you guys mean business, so from this moment on, I’m done. No more looking for Miranda.”

  “You do not know where she is?”

  I pulled my head back a little. “If I knew where she was, I wouldn’t be looking for her, right?” I looked at the two Humans. They just shrugged.

  “Have you acquired any information on where she might be located?”

  “You’re looking for her, too? Why?”

  “It is because she has taken the—”

  One of the other Humans reached out his hand and grasped the arm of the alien. The fat thug shook his head at old plate-head. The alien turned back to me. “That is of no concern to you. Just tell us all you know and you will not be harmed.”

  “Well, this is going to be a short conversation, because I don’t know nothin’.” I knew this was a double negative, but it did sound like something out of an old gangster movie. “She was here a couple of weeks ago, and now she isn’t. She said she was a spy, but all my sources say she doesn’t work for any of the agencies. So beyond that, I don’t know shit.”

  Just then, a wild idea began to percolate in my mind. “However, if you guys know anything about me, then you know I’m a businessman. Offer me enough money and I’ll do just about anything – without you having to go through all this gangster-shit. Having said that, what would it be worth to you if I found her?”

  “Worth?”

  The leader-thug leaned over a little closer to his boss. “He wants to know how much you’ll pay him to find her for us.”

  The alien’s face lit up and he nodded emphatically. “I see! Well, we would be in a position to pay … forty thousand credits to bring her to us.”

  I’m sorry, but I just had to laugh; even the thugs looked embarrassed. “That’s barely sixteen thousand in Human money,” I pointed out. “Haven’t you guys done your homework? I’m Jason King; I don’t do shit for sixteen thousand dollars.”

  “How much would you require?”

  “Well, let’s see: Miranda’s taken off with something that you want to get back pretty badly, enough that you would resort to unlawful detainment – which is a capital offense here on Sylox by the way.” I said that for the benefit of the thugs. “I’d say a million would be fair. A million dollars.”

  I swear the alien gangster nearly fainted. “We cannot pay you that! That is nearly two-and-one-half million Union credits. No, your fee is exorbitant.”

  “Well, I’m willing to negotiate, but you should be aware that I have contacts all over Sylox, even within the Council itself. If anyone can find this bitc – this Human – it would be me.”

  The alien looked to the two thugs. They nodded.

  “I will have to consult.”

  The alien boss walked to the other end of the room and placed a communicator to his ear. After a couple of minutes, he returned.

  “The most we could offer you would be two hundred fifty thousand credits – I mean dollars.”

  A quarter mil … not bad. I pursed my lips and nodded. “That sounds fair. Now how about you guys cut me loose?”

  My wrists were bound in a thick tape of some kind. The smaller Human thug stepped forward, produced a black-bladed Ka-Bar Becker combat knife – which told me a little more about who these guys were – and sliced my bindings away. Much of the hair on my wrists came with the tape when I ripped it from my skin.

  “Now tell me what she took.”

  Finally the lead thug took over the conversation, having lost patience with his alien boss. “You don’t need to know that, King. Just find the girl and get her back to us.”

  “What do you know about where she might be?”

  “If we knew we wouldn’t be talking to you. But there’s possibility she’s gone off to a place called Hyben. There’s a group there who would find what she has to be valuable.”

  “How valuable?” I said with a wide grin.

  The thug shook his head and frowned.

  “Is Hyben a city or a planet?”

  “It’s a planet, and in the city of Lioren-Cur, if she’s there. You can take your fancy new spaceship over there in nothing flat,” the thug said, his voice thick with sarcasm – and jealousy.

  So they had done their homework.

  “And how will I contact you when I get her?”

  “Don’t worry about that; we’ll contact you. And one last thing – the object she has with her comes back, too, and in one piece, or you don’t get a dime. Is that understood?”

  “But you won’t tell me what she has?”

  “That’s right, but you’ll know it when you see it.”

&nbs
p; “So why not just tell me?

  “You’ll figure it out, smartass. Now get the hell out of here.”

  With our business concluded, we began to move toward the door, but just before getting there I turned to the Human thugs. “Oh, by the way, which one of you shot me?”

  Before either had a chance to think, the smaller thug half-raised his hand. I then proceeded to plant a heavy right cross on his jaw, sending him crumbling to the floor, out cold.

  The other thug raised his MK-24; I ignored him, and instead addressed the unconscious thug on the floor. “There, now we’re even, asshole.”

  Chapter 14

  It turned out that I been in a warehouse in a rundown section of Sylox City on the other side of Lomick River from the Embassy Compound, and with time running short, I took a very expensive taxi to my office. I would come back to the Embassy for my car after the closing. But now I only had forty-five minutes to freshen up and get over to the title company for the closing.

  As I washed my face and slipped on a shirt I’d literally taken off Quint’s back, I filled him in on all that had happened that morning. Quint had served with me in the Rangers, and had been the person who introduced me to the wonderful world of real estate sales.

  “You’re going to do it? Why don’t you just go to the Embassy police or your friend the spy?”

  “Now I’m just as curious to find her as they are. She’s turned into quite the mystery girl. And you know how I could use the money right about now.”

  “They may kill her when you bring her back.”

  “I’ll be careful about that. Just let them pay me the quarter-mill and then I’ll get her someplace safe – like a jail cell.”

  “Just be careful, Jason. You know I’d have to change the ownership papers for Galactic Realty and Relocation Service if anything happened to you.”

  “Is that all I am to you, just a name on a piece of paper? Wouldn’t you miss me if I was gone?” I said with a grin.

  Quint shrugged. “So the plot thickens,” he said.

  “Guess it had to. You can’t bore the readers for too long without throwing in some action here and there.”

  “You never take things seriously, do you? You were shot this morning and they could have just as easily killed you than not.”

  “Yeah, but now I know something’s afoot, so I’ll be more careful from here on out.”

  “Afoot?”

  “Didn’t it sound sophisticated and mysterious enough for you?”

  Quint shook his head. “Get the hell out of here, you jerk, before I shoot you myself. You have a closing to get to, before heading off across the stars looking for some hot babe with a stolen something-or-another.”

  I may be the smart and devilishly-handsome of the pair, but Quint was the quiet, dangerous one. I knew that at any given moment he carried a minimum of three weapons on his body, including a knife, and two guns. I hurried out of the office before he could make good on his threat.

  Seriously, I wished I could take him with me, but someone had to stay here and hold down the fort. Besides, how hard could it be to track down one incredibly good-looking Human woman on a planet full of aliens?

  Really … how hard?

  Looking back on it now, I know I should have asked the alien gangster for an advance.

  **********

  Transferring title on Sylox was similar to the process back on Earth, and several Human companies had set up shop on the planet to assist with closings and the selling of title insurance.

  In fact, the process of buying, selling and financing real estate within the Enclaves was pretty much a clone of Earth-based procedures. The large developers had done all the heavy lifting, acquiring the land from alien owners and then dealing with all the title issues and currency conversions to make it possible. Once that was done, the developers then resold the land to their clients using traditional methods. It actually made a lot of sense and worked like a charm.

  Yet there were always personalities to deal with, and my agent, Trish Dawson, had a real mess on her hands with her customers, Julio and Fatima Gonzales. They had been fighting constantly since the contract had been signed, and if the trend continued, it would be miracle if the deal actually closed.

  Julio was with the security detail at the Embassy, so not in the category of client that normally would have attracted my attention. Yet Trish was fairly new to my office, so I felt a little display of the master-at-work would go a long way to gaining her trust and confidence in my leadership of the company. Besides, I liked her. She was trying her best, and I believed that with the proper training she had the potential to become a heavy-hitter.

  As it is with most people, all the Gonzales’s needed was just a little affirmation that what they were doing was the right decision. So during the closing I was understanding and supportive – yet also firm. Homeownership – whether on Earth or on Sylox – was a great investment and served to stabilize most families. It established roots in the community and conveyed a sense of maturity in young couples.

  And it sure beat the thin-walled, dilapidated apartment they were renting within the alien ’hood outside the Embassy Compound.

  It was a good move for the couple, and after spending an hour longer than these closings normally took, Julio and Fatima left the office smiling and holding hands, excited about starting this new phase in their life together.

  Now I could see the admiration in Trish’s eyes, something bordering on celebrity worship. I liked that coming from my employees, so when we got back to the office, I cut her commission check immediately and handed it to her.

  “Thanks, Jason,” she said sincerely. “This is number three, and with many more to come.”

  “That’s right. Just keep up the good work, Trish. I honestly believe you have what it takes to make it in this business.”

  “If you just stay patient with me; I still have a lot to learn.”

  Just then Quint poked his head in my office, a look of concern on his face. “You have company, Jason.”

  Trish smiled at him and then quickly made her exist from the office. Quint stepped inside. “It’s the police.”

  “No shit? Wonder what they want?” Considering the day I was having, I knew this wasn’t just a couple of guys looking for donations to the annual Guns and Hoses charity event.

  “There’s six of them,” Quint added, “and they look serious.”

  I got up from my desk and walked out to the lobby. The lead officer was a native Zorphin, yet there were also two Velosians with him, as well.

  “Are you Jason King?”

  “I am. What’s this—”

  “I am Senior Enforcer Krimious Lim-Volic Sin, and I have to inform you that you are being placed in custody for transport to Central Command. There you will be questioned concerned a recent crime. Do not resist, we are authorized to use restraining force to initiate compliance.”

  “I’m not going to resist, I just want to know what this is all about?”

  The lead police officer looked at a worried-looking Quint and then at all the other stunned faces in the office. “Information will be provided at Central, but this is a matter of the utmost seriousness. Please allow us now to apply the restraints.”

  “I said I won’t resist.”

  “It is a requirement. Turn around.”

  I complied, and the two Velosians moved in quickly and applied metal handcuffs to my wrists, jostling me a little too roughly for my liking.

  “Easy fellas; I do break, you know.”

  “Quiet!” said one of the Velosians as he stuck his thin, pink face up to mine. “You are fortunate that the local authorities have interceded in this affair. We would not have been so polite, not after what you have done.”

  “What the hell’s your problem? I haven’t done anything.”

  “I have studied Humans to some degree, and I believe there is a term that applies here: Bullshit.”

  I turned to Quint. “Call Kevin at the Embassy and have him meet me
at Central.” Kevin Anderson was the lead attorney for the American contingent at the Mission, who also did freelance work for a few of the expats, me included. I’d only used him for contract law up to this point, since I hadn’t needed a criminal attorney – until now. I wasn’t even sure if he could help, except to refer me to someone who could.

  I was manhandled out of the office, in plain view of my employees, who by now had all gathered in the lobby area as my arrest took place. This was one hell of an embarrassment, and I knew who was directly responsible for it: Miranda Moore.

  Chapter 15

  I tried in vain to get the alien police to explain what was going on during the thirty minute drive to Enforcer Central Command. The natives remained stoic, while the Velosians continued to regard me with unabashed contempt.

  This had to have something to do with Miranda Moore; I felt it in my bones, although I had no idea what it could be. From the events of this morning, I knew she had taken something of value – something valuable enough to command a quarter-million dollar fee to recover. Of course, all that had flown out the window when the cops came a-calling. Right now, all I wanted to do was clear up whatever misunderstanding had occurred. Even then, I would have a lot of explaining to do back at my office, and if word of my arrest got out to the expat community, it could also affect my business overall.

  Galactic Realty took priority over whatever pie-in-the-sky bounty I could get from the alien thug.

  As we arrived at the massive, pyramid-shaped building near the Capitol Complex for the Galactic Union, I began to worry. There were easily half-a-dozen field stations between my office and here, and the fact that I was being brought to police headquarters for the entire planet meant that I could be in some serious shit.

  Since the Human Embassy was located only four miles from the Capitol Complex, I was relieved to see Kevin Anderson was already at Receiving when I was brought in. After a brief – yet heated – exchange between the lead officer and the Velosians, Kevin and I were allowed a brief moment together in private, if only off to one quiet corner of the processing center.