Colleen ran a tight ship and had insisted on being involved in every aspect of her operation. I had met her when a friend brought us in for an interview. She was very interested in others who had escaped from the camps and I could feel her eyes on me whenever I was monitoring play on one of the tables. She called me into her office a few weeks after I started and asked if I would be interested in joining her crew.

‘What does it involve?’ I was looking for something concrete that could give me and Rem a roof over our heads.

‘Running errands, making collections, you know.’ She shrugged. It’s better than starving. I thought about it seriously for a few days but decided that I would rather work for myself. Rem and I disappeared about a month later with some credits he had skimmed and we made our way out of her territory for good. The money I earned doing odd jobs helped bankroll his bar and I could relax knowing that he was taken care of.

We had crossed paths occasionally since then, but this was my first major run in with her as an independent contractor and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. The information I got was mostly worthless, but I saved the various contacts and messages in an encrypted folder and decided to just give Manuk Kai a call.

I used a new ID and looked up the contact numbers for vendors on Pax station.

73. Manuk Kai

Ok- I should have just done this from the beginning. The communicator rang for a while and no one picked up. Maybe he’s just out for lunch? I bought a few more hours for the room, ordered some food and waited. After an appropriate amount of time passed, I tried again. No luck.

This wasn’t good. I didn’t know anyone else who dealt in this type of product and the last thing I wanted to do was go back to Jase den Ammet. ‘Arggg!’ I threw the bag of Choco-no-nos™ across the room.

‘Why can’t I get a fucking break!’

A few years ago, I decided to get serious about my chosen profession. I began to groom contacts, develop intelligence networks and upgrade the tools of my trade. Everything was going well. I was good at what I did and had no trouble getting contracts on the more difficult type of troublemaker. It seemed that everything was going right and as long as I survived, I would be able to earn a living doing something I loved.

I would occasionally put the word out that I was looking for work and professionals with problems they couldn’t deal with legally would get in touch with me to sort out their situations. That was how I met Jase den Ammet and also how I learned about Dr. Killgore. The good doctor was up to his neck in gambling debts and on the run from a casino operator in one of the more disreputable mobile stations.

After a few weeks of him barely slipping away, I pinned him down in a settlement on Efros 3. He was human, but had escaped shortly after the Liagro arrived. The idea of practicing honest medicine didn’t appeal to him and he left on one of the early transports out of the Sol System. He bounced around for years gambling and stealing from enthusiastic investors who were excited about the Liagro righting the problems on Earth and turning it into a functioning society.

When I found him, he was a sweaty mess on the floor of an abandoned facility, high on some type of fungus and pleading with me, as a fellow human, to leave him alone.

‘Sorry, man. Just doing my job.’ I hadn’t been in the business that long and was trying to prove my reliability.

‘Listen.’ He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. ‘I can’t go to prison out here. I’m very delicate and these hands are gifts from God.’ He held his hands in the air and fell to his knees.

‘You’re from Io, aren’t you?’ He gasped and stood.

‘Yeah.’ Memories of my family rushed into my head, but I quickly shook them off. This whole thing was really irritating me and I was ready to just knock him out so I could throw him in the back of my ship and collect my credits.

‘I..I can help you.’ He grabbed my shoulders again. ‘I can help you find your family. If they’re still alive.’

‘What?’ I felt like he had hit me. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ I threw him over a table and rolled him over to secure his hands.

‘Wait, wait. I’ve done it before.’ He was panting excitedly. ‘I have access to the database of humans on Earth. I can take some of your DNA.’ His eyes were wide and his pupils had dilated so much that they appeared to be pools of black. I smacked him and he came back to the current situation.

‘You’re insane. That’s impossible. I mean…’ I backed off for a second, fervently hoping he would tell me more, but worrying that they were gone, or had moved on.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

‘No. You were removed from Earth because you were…’ He paused.

‘Careful…’ I glared at him.

‘Uh, defective’ I pulled my arm back to sucker punch him, but he continued.

‘Wait! You see, you still have your entire brain. The Liagro just…just increased the ability for the brain to...to...to inhibit undesirable behavior. The result was that the developing embryo attempted to compensate.’ He shrugged. ‘Nature, you know.’ I just stood there listening and trying to process what he was saying and he continued, hoping I would let him go if I liked what he said.

‘It, the brain, naturally wants to have some access to, the pleasure...and humans now...I was right to leave..’ He smiled at me and trailed off, the fungus clearly still working.

‘Tell me more.’ I forcefully held him against the wall and gave him a hard slap, bringing him back to the present.

‘In your case, the embryo split after insemination, after the procedure and one twin has the adjusted frontal lobe intact, with the increased inhibition, while the other experiences extreme disinhibition. It’s the body’s attempt to resist the procedure, and… and...’ He was staring at me and smiling. ‘I could fix you too, you’re just, uh...’

‘Why can’t you just like, uh, turn on the parts that aren’t working, or whatever?’ The whole thing sounded insane but I was intrigued. I had periodically fantasized about being a normal human since I met Rem and even though I didn’t want this psychopath anywhere near my head, I began to wonder if some sort of corrective procedure was really possible.

‘They didn’t, don’t want... The Liagro, they don’t want...’ He was fading. ‘The rest of the population to know, that uh, uh…’ I slapped him across the face. ‘Oh! Uh, that they can do anything about the situation. Access to information about the brain is tightly controlled, and, uh, on…on Earth research on the frontal lobe is strictly forbidden. And, and...because of the procedure, they obey the Liagro, unquestioningly.’ His face looked sullen.

‘But they can never feel...like this.’ He smiled again and I could tell that no matter where he ended up, he would be happier than he would on Earth. ‘Just.. just let me go and I’ll work with you to repair..the, uh, problem.’

He had clearly lost his mind, but the idea stayed with me.

‘Too bad, doc. I need the money.’

I shackled the irate doctor, taped his mouth shut and turned him over to the very happy loan shark who immediately put him to work sewing up his enforcers who had caught the bad end of their courtesy calls.

For months afterwards, whenever I had a few moments to myself, I thought about what he said. It was intriguing, and I felt an intense need to try. I had never loved, never been loved, my twin had our parents while I was raised as a tool for labor. My needs were met, but my search for constant stimulation was never satiated. I always needed more and nothing could stop me.

Observing Rem provided me with the template I needed to learn how to control some of my worst impulses, but I still gave in more often than I should. That was the reason I bought the bar for him, and deposited my credits into his account. I was friends with a trader who had connections on Earth and she was able to eventually locate my twin. I soon had in my possession an image and a name.

Faye.

I looked at her often, obsessing over this person who was connected to me intrinsically and thinking about what her life was like in the gilded cage. I imagined her childhood, angering myself with details like the education she received and a relationship with my parents. Over time, I began to resent her intensely, blaming her for my lot in life, but the hatred ebbed into the desire to save her from the horrors of her measured existence. She would want me to rescue her.

Suddenly, my monitor was ringing and my Choco-no-nos™ were gone.

‘Yeah.’ I stood and went to the room service panel to get some more.

‘Hey Aia.’ It was Feros. Good.

‘Hi Feros.’ I made my way back to the monitor and sat down.

‘I didn’t see anything about Colleen, sorry.’

‘Did you also take a look at his calls?’

‘Yeah, nothing. There was a dude named Manuk Kai and some other business contacts, but they all had recognizable names and none of them were Colleen.’ I felt a huge sense of relief rush through me. He still could have made contact with her, but it was looking less likely.

‘Thanks, Feros.’ I really appreciate your help. I blew him a kiss.

‘Yeah- so when are you co-’ I hung up and disposed of the number I had used.

I tried calling Manuk Kai again, but still no luck. Either Colleen had killed him or he was having a hell of a liquid lunch. I gathered my shit and left the room, with no idea of what to do next. I didn’t want to get Faye until I had this taken care of the Oranium situation and trying to find another buyer for my stash would be almost impossible. I decided to risk it and as I pulled out of the dock, I called Ammet to see if he knew what was going on.

‘I told you not to contact me.’ Ammet was pissed and I was extremely puzzled.

‘You called me, asshole.’ He looked bewildered.

‘No I didn’t.’

‘Yes you did, like two days, uh 1 farsoot, ago.’ No recognition. ‘You wanted me to hurry up, to see Manuk Kai…’

‘Listen, Aia. I don’t know who you were speaking with, but it wasn’t me.’ He slammed his fist on the desk. ‘Now get in touch with Manuk Kai and leave me the fuck alone.’

‘I can’t find him.’

‘Your job is hunting people down, Aia.’ He shook his head. ‘Hold on.’ Muzak played and my mind raced through the possibilities regarding this recent development. If Ammet didn’t call me, then who the hell did? I drummed my fingers on the dash then turned around and rustled through my stuff to find something to snack on but, of course, there was nothing left.

‘Aia.’ Ammet’s voice filled the cabin. ‘I can’t get through to him. Keep trying at the station. If he doesn’t resurface, he might be on his home planet, uh… Manos O, I think.’ Ammet hung up and I tried Manuk Kai again, nothing.

So who called me if it wasn’t Ammet? I ran through the options. It could have been Colleen, maybe she had been monitoring his calls and knew that I was trying to find the Manosian. Rushing me would make it easier to capture me at his shop, but if she had known it was me, she could have easily gotten one of her contacts at the station to keep an eye out for me or my ship. Something was going on, but I wasn’t smart enough to figure out what it was.