Frank emerges from the forest and arrives into the clearing, at the edge of the fenced off Wildlife Ventures' facility.
Even though the stampeding animals had broken through the gate and the fence on different spots yesterday, both were already patched up, albeit haphazardly.
He takes the ID card from his left pant’s pocket and hangs it on his neck, while walking towards the checkpoint at the gate.
The two guards stationed there, in full military gear, spot his approach from afar and look his way.
“Heya, Jack, Jill” Frank greets as he gets close enough.
“If it isn’t Frank, any luck out there?”
Jack asks adjusting his cap, a green and brown camouflage texture covering it, his right hand resting on his weapon’s stock.
“I’m, afraid not” Frank shrugs.
“So what brings you back? I think the boss man’s orders were: ‘Don’t come back until you’ve captured it’
And you seem to have returned empty handed”
Jill grills him with a grin, drilling into Frank’s soul with an intense stare of her amber eyes.
“That’s just it, I was hoping to talk to him about it”
“Is that so?”
Jack settles the cap into a downwards angle hiding his gray eyes, then looks down at Frank from below the rim of his cap with a look of superiority.
“How brazen, how utterly foolish” Jill scoffs and rolls her eyes, throwing her light brown short hair around dramatically with a flick of her hand too.
The guards and Frank stare each other a while in silence.
...
Hah, sorry Frank, I just love giving you a hard time” Jack speaks up first.
“Of course we’ll let you in”
A slight smile creeping on his usually expressionless face.
Frank puts both of his hands to his pockets and takes out the Applenuts, tossing one to Jack.
“Wha- why didn’t you lead with these if you got them?” Jack deftly catches the fruit with his left hand.
Frank then throws the other one to Jill.
“Damn Frank, making us look soft” Jill pouts and looks away, catching the fruit without looking at it.
“Hahaha, keep up the good work” Frank grins at them both.
The pair groans and rolls their eyes at him as Jack slides the iron fence gate open, slightly bulkier than the surrounding fence.
Frank walks through into the facility’s grounds, they close the gate shut after him with a rattle.
The main entrance’s large steel double doors are bumpy and dented for being torn down and stomped under the foxbears’ feet just the other day.
They don’t seem to close quite right anymore, but at least his colleagues have managed to prop them up again.
On his right, on the far end of the fenced facility is a separate building, a block of flats, the on-site residence of all other employees, or well everyone but the boss and him.
The manager of this location lived in the main building, in a separate penthouse-esque space above the first floor of the facility facility.
The facility itself was only on the ground floor, but made up for it in its sheer size and high roof.
He entered through the heavy door, it squeaked and dragged against the ground as he pushed it open.
A faint smell of smoke irritates his nostrils.
Maybe they should have waited in patching the roof and the walls to make sure all the smoke got out first…
The doors opened straight into the large open space of the animal cages.
He strained to close the door back up and set out for the employee dressing rooms to the right.
He walked along the bleak corridor of gray and grayer, cement floor and metal walls, at least all the actual work spaces were more cozy.
Passing by some colleagues on the way, he gave them a wave or a nod if he was at least acquaintances with them.
Only a few of them returned the gesture, others cringed and ignored him the best they could.
He pushed open the door to the men’s locker room, six neat rows of lockers forming small corridors in the room, with long benches between them and on the back wall.
Here the walls were actually wood and covered with light blue paint, even the floor was tiled yellow, although its color starting to fade.
Seemingly nobody else was present, he went to his locker, opening it with his ID that also functioned as a key card.
He started undressing from his usual clothes, and changing to the formal suit he was forced to wear at work.
Frank didn't hate this manner of wear, but it was much too stiff and impractical, he actually felt he looked quite fetching in a suit.
He had even gotten some looks from the ladies at the workplace the first few days of his promotion, but in reality those could have been anything.
Maybe they mocked him for his long hair as it even more prominently contrasted against these fine clothes.
He had recently been promoted to auction organizer, hence the suit.
Though he still kept his old responsibility of photographing the animals, as he had basically been doing half the work of an upper level job, for a long time before getting promoted.
He missed feeding and otherwise taking care of the animals himself, however.
Having to deal with auction organizers and customers remotely, or even on site, did not compare to making taking care of the exotic alien animals.
Even if their time together usually was brief, only a few days, sometimes weeks, before they were shipped off to buyers or factories.
“If it isn’t Frank the Alien Whisperer”
The voice of Pablo rings on his left.
“What brings you here, didn’t boss basically banish you for what went down on your last shift? Or did you already catch the thing?”
“I’m working on it” Frank quickly responds as he pulls up the suit’s trousers.
“Hah, you better be, I’m amazed you had the balls to come back without it, don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry!”
The man with a chestnut complexion booms with his low bass voice.
“Well his face wasn’t even half as red as it was back five years ago, when he shouted so much he lost his voice for a week”
Frank adjusts his god awful green tie with yellow stripes running down it in acute angles, while looking at the mirror of his locker.
“Damn, what a blessed week after that must have been, was it due to the Mosquitolibri debacle?”
“No, it was even earlier than that, nobody even talks of it as they fear they’ll get overheard by management”
Satisfied with the state of his tie and dress shirt he puts on the suit’s coat and turns to Pablo.
“Oh man, I need to know exactly what happened!” The gossiper of the workplace exclaims with a glint in his dark brown eyes.
“Well, I’ll tell it to you some other time, I’m quite busy now” Frank gives Pablo a mischievous smile while buttoning up his coat.
He turns back to the locker, grabbing his camera from the top shelf as well as his hat, placing them on the bench below, before locking it up.
“Well alright, good luck Frank, if anyone can survive this, it’s you. He wouldn’t dare to just fire the longest employed employee”
Frank lifts the camera from the bench and hangs it around his neck from its strap, followed by perching the flat hat, accompanying the attire, on his head.
He wasn’t sure what the point of it was, but maybe it made him look more presentable.
“Hah, I wouldn’t be so sure, but thanks Pablo”
Frank headed out of the dressing room, leaving Pablo behind, who hadn’t yet managed to do any changing himself.
He continued down the corridor on the right of the dressing rooms, to the cafeteria, situated after another right turn.
Alright, after I’ve eaten, hmmm, where should I start?
Maybe the shipping manifest of Amethyst’s ship, it should say where they hauled off her mother’s body.
He joins the queue for the cafeteria’s self service counter, there were some employees here even thought Frank arrived at an unusual time.
The cafeteria received constant patronage throughout the day due to the work times being flexible, you could start and end your day whenever and take breaks as much as you liked, as long as the job got done.
Though if the boss caught you lazing around too much you’d likely get assigned more work.
I hope I don’t run into him, easier to snoop around without him breathing down my neck.
Gotta eat fast and then get on it.
He bought a lizard stew and a lizard meat sandwich, the viridian centizard was a plentiful and also a good tasting source of food, so it was used widely in many dishes.
It was also their number one export, one of their few legal ones.
He sits down to an empty table and starts sipping the soup up.
“Enjoying your last supper?” A voice, too familiar, grated Frank’s ears.
“How’s it going Rocco?”
“Oh, on a first name basis are we? Last time I checked you still hadn’t recaptured that Tyrchid, so it’s Mr. Crondeston to you”
His boss sits on the same table, directly in front of Frank.
“Fine, Crondeston, whatever, why do you need it back so badly anyway? You never told me the reason” Frank spoons up soup and takes a bite of his bread on top.
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“Because you don’t need to know anything else than that we need it, and this time your job will actually be on the line”
Rocco’s elbows are on the table, his fingers interlocked, he leans his jaw to his thumbs like some overlord, sizing up Frank.
Hah, how many times has he said that to me by now?
“You never assign anyone to retrieve the escaped animals? Why now?
Is there something special about this one? Is it especially dangerous to the ecosystem?"
“Well, I- no, you are getting nothing out of me!" Rocco raises from his slouch on the table and crosses his arms.
"Is it... valuable?” Frank asks with a grin.
L-like I’d tell you, need I remind you that nosiness is up there for punishment along with betrayal and failure”
Bingo
“In the transport that it arrived in, there was another one, larger, right? Do you know where it is, can I see it?”
The bald, slightly pudgy man scoffs loudly.
“Of course I know where it is and no you cannot see it”
“Why? It would be very beneficial, I could analyze the contents of its digestive tract, see what it eats, where I’d likely find it, see what kind of climate and areas it prefers…”
“Would you now? The answer is still no”
“What? I thought you wanted me to find this thing?”
Frank raises his voice a little and leans forwards, quickly swiping his long blond hair back, before they soak in his stew.
“I do. But I can’t show it even if I wanted, it has already been sent to HQ.
You should have come up with this strategy sooner” Rocco smiles contentedly as he speaks.
What? Why would Headquarters want it…
Frank leans back on his seat.
“Well that’s unfortunate… I guess I’ll have to make do without it”
“You better” He raises his head and wags a finger at Frank.
“I suggest you finish your slop and get back to it immediately if you know what’s good for you”
Rocco says sternly, his face tinting a bit red already as he stands up.
“Well, I still have some more pictures to take for tomorrow’s auction, as well as dealing with some of our VIP clients, I can’t well be neglecting my duties even if I’ve been assigned to retrieval”
Frank stares at Rocco’s blue eyes.
“Ah” Rocco’s smug demeanor changes completely.
“Did I ever tell you how I admire your diligence, everyone else should follow your example. People like you have a bright future ahead of you here in the IWV”
Rocco walks around the table as he speaks and slaps Frank on the shoulder.
“Keep up the great work”
He saunters away and leaves the cafeteria.
Rocco is always Rocco…
Frank downs the rest of the banaorange juice and cleans the remaining stew, getting up from the table, the wooden chair pushed backwards with a screech.
Alright then, since I promised…
First, my actual work.
Frank sets out to work, efficiently going through the cages housing animals that still need pictures taken from them, the warehouse side was mostly in order again, though the burned stack of boxes hadn’t been cleaned up yet.
Frank makes his way to his work computer, situated in a room on the left side of the facility with other office spaces separated by thin movable walls.
He uploads the pictures from his camera and organizes them on their blackmarket igweb (Intergalactic web) page.
He jots down the descriptions and details of each animal, as well as the starting bid prices, so that it's ready to go live tomorrow.
A fair bit of their merchandise having to be unlisted for having escaped, surprisingly, the Tyrchid seemed to not have made this auction list in the first place.
Once that’s done he has a few video calls with VIP customers and live auction organizers about upcoming stock. Frank hated this part of the job, sucking up to some millionaire’s whims.
But at least some of them seemed to be taking care of the animals, as they frequently asked him for tips on how to best treat them, as well as for advice when they got sick or had some other issues.
Those people weren't too bad, he was happy to lend his knowledge each time.
Frank then sends some emails and inquiries to legitimate businesses and their factory lines about their need and demand for some centizard products, the end of email signature he was obligated to use ticked him off each time he saw it.
“Eat you when I meet you” -slogan, with a green cartoon Centizard lizard below wearing a wizard hat, cape and wielding a wand.
Underneath this farce his employee name and number so their customers know who they are dealing with.
Their marketing department had had a break through by advertising their products with this centizard wizard cartoon mascot called Cenzard, their products demand had skyrocketed after the first ad campaign, which had been steadily growing ever since.
Cenzard’s whole shtick was about how it fought with magic against the evil Centizards depicted as their real life counterparts and saving the day by turning them into food products.
While often getting comically confused to his non-intelligent food product kin and ending in all sorts of misunderstandings.
Frank wasn’t happy about the undertones of this marketing, a species voluntarily and happily selling out its kin, which didn’t seem to bother the public at all.
But it’s not like such nonsensical marketing hadn’t been done in the past before, cartoon characters depicting products committing cannibalism or other heinous acts.
...
Maybe it wasn't wise to think too hard about the underlying crazy world of ads...
Ugh, enough about getting upset about this crap again...
He checks when the next scheduled flights, both automatic and manually flown, in and out of the base are, refining the search results with “Destination: Midnight Iris”.
There’s one ship leaving today… 1 hour ago.
WHAT? They sent in a ship there, today!?
He checks the passenger list, 15 people from security and… every single one of their researchers?
Why would they suddenly send so many to a mining outpost of our sister company?
He was going to check the work list next to see if the researchers were still working in the lab, but now he wouldn’t need to even do that.
He suddenly remembers and checks the clock. Rocco should be having his afternoon feast right about now.
Phew, just in time, I should have a small window to go around without him monitoring me from the cameras.
Frank gets up from his workstation and inconspicuously makes his way down the halls and to the Lab, only a few doors away from their offices, also on the left side.
He arrived at the double doors of the lab and cracked open the right one, the lights were out, only the faint blue glow of monitors and some machinery lit up the room.
He stepped into the room and turned on the lights, long fluorescent lamp tubes blinked into full glow.
The door’s springs close it behind him with a swaying back and forth motion, as it opened to both directions, until the door finally stopped moving.
Alright, let’s see…
He first checked the four computers in the room, all of them were locked up and password protected.
If only it was that easy.
Frank opts to searching through the last computer's desk instead, ruffling through the numerous papers around, reading their headlines.
Papers on Giraffeduck feather pillow ad campaign and the scientific benefits listed on sleeping on such pillows.
Another one on… Centizard toothpaste…
Ew.
A draft of Cenzard holding a toothbrush in place of his wand is doodled to the side of the paper.
Finally he found a promising paper:
'Foxbear fur's usage in house construction as insulation'.
He quickly glanced through the research, it was really interesting, delving deep into the numbers and reasons as to why it was better than normal insulation.
If he was ever building another house he’d have to keep this in mind.
That table being a bust, he glances around again, spotting a workspace on the far left, with a centrifuge on it, next to a fridge.
Papers lay on it too, one with very faint green stains on it.
He hurries to the table and picks up the paper, avoiding the green dried liquid.
The title reads:
“The properties of Tyrchid blood and substance P”
He reads through the whole thing, it lists in great detail how they researched the blood that first seemed to be useless and not react with anything, until they combined it with the purple liquid inside of a separate vein system and glands in the Tyrchid’s body, substance P.
The combination of these two was an explosive ball of fire, igniting immediately.
They ran some tests on the details of this new combination and found it to be much more combustive, burning much longer and hotter than currently used top grade spaceship fuel.
He read a segment in the paper over and over that especially struck him:
“With careful handling and combination of these two substances inside a durable enough rocket engine, it could up their fuel efficiency by 540,27% and their over all output by 1768,61%.
This fuel source would also be renewable as it comes from an organic species, a challenge mankind and the rest of the galaxies have struggled with since time immemorial.
However, no such rocket engine currently exists that could withstand the full combustion of these two substances in a closed space.
Further research is needed on the optimal storage and preservation of this blood and substance P.
Fresher blood and in much larger quantities are required.”
At the bottom of the page, a signature of Rocco Crondeston authorizes further research, dated yesterday evening.
Oh my god. They sent an expedition on Midnight Iris, to harvest the Tyrchid’s blood?
The blood of Amethyst’s family?
Cough
Somebody clears his throat behind him.
Frank quickly drops the paper back on the table and turns to see Rocco in the doorway.
“And just what do you think you are doing?” He eyes him suspiciously, blocking both of the double doors with his body.
“I… decided to see if the researchers had happened to have any notes of their own on the behavior, habitat or diet of Tyrchids.
Since, unfortunately none of them were present and I didn’t want to wait for tomorrow” Frank spouts half-lies trying to remain calm and believable.
“You know how they are, always so early to get to work, when you’d need them in the evening they are never present”
“Yes, of course quite so, did you find anything to help in its capture?”
“Well according to this paper their blood is green, and I do think it was injured so that’s a pretty good lead.
I do remember spotting some splatter resembling the shade on this paper earlier in the woods, so I think I better get on her trail fast before it moves to another location”
Frank quickly makes his argument.
“Oh, very good then, please do hurry on tracking her down” Rocco says, awfully calm and cooperative.
Frank walks starts walking towards Rocco as calmly and normally as possible, intending to make his exit.
As he approaches, Rocco gives Frank way.
“Have a good evening sir” Frank says as casually as possible as he is about to pass him.
“Likewise” Rocco’s gaze is fixated on him, through his squinted eyes he evaluates Frank as he passes him and exits through the left door.
Frank walks away from the lab with a quick gait, glancing behind him in occasion, as he makes his way to his computers.
Nobody seems to be tailing him, but it's hard to tell in the badly lit corridors.
He sits down on his office chair in front of his PC and types furiously for a few minutes.
As he is finished, he sends two emails from his personal account.
Just a little insurance.
Then he hurries back towards the dressing room, at this point in time, there isn’t that many employees present.
They have gone home or are doing some free time activities in other parts of the facility.
He enters the dressing room and hastily ditches the suit for his preferred wear as well as putting the camera back back on the shelf.
Frank makes a swift exit from the facility, he hadn't exactly done anything wrong, but he couldn't help but feel uneasy.
The facility no longer felt like his place, no longer like a home.
A foreign dark corner of the world with shady personnel and even shadier business.
He breaks through the heavy door with a struggle and enters the yard.
The sun has almost set already.
Damn it's that late already?
I hope Amethyst is doing alright...