Bliss Carmichael was certainly no stranger to being on the receiving end of slack jawed ogling. As long as it remained only that, she often managed some sly amusement from those that her mere presence had entranced. However, to her recollection, she had not ever so enraptured a child before; then, standing in line at a bank headquarters on Aerialon, she found the young boy in the line adjacent to hers not merely amusing, but also quite funny. If nothing else, his unrestrained reaction to her form was something to grin about and keep her spirits up while she was on her own. Better than focusing on the mutinous bloodshed her allies faced aboard the Coldbreed, which, by her orders, she could do nothing about.
Every now and then, Bliss’s eyes fluttered from surveillance sensor to surveillance sensor in the bank lobby. Logically, she knew the instinctual glance to be moot—she was not planning on robbing the bank and had already been recorded on too many picter feeds to leave without a trace. But her natural compulsion to do things as stealthily as possible ever compelled her to be keenly aware of her surroundings.
“Next!” called the teller before Bliss. Bliss stepped up, briefly scanning the teller over—a younger woman than herself, with a perky but fake grin. The teller may have wanted to be there less than Bliss, but a job was a job. “How may I help you today?”
“Hi, I’d like to open an account and a line of credit with your bank,” Bliss replied, hands folded behind her back. Her attire had already changed into that of civilian clothing, her bodyglove, and her weapons with it, stashed away in a thin alcove several blocks away.
“Sure! I’ll have to fetch the manager to handle that for you. Can you wait here a moment, and may I have your name?” the teller asked.
“Bliss Carmichael, and yes, I can wait,” Bliss nodded, putting on a fake smile of her own. Yes, Bliss thought, I can wait while a voidship plummets toward the planet. The wait was short, by the standards of Imperial bureaucracy, which meant it was still long by any standards of decency. Minutes passed. Bliss again amused herself with the knowledge of the young boy’s gaze from earlier, finding that the child had, behind his mother, stepped nearer to the teller they had been in line for. While no longer slackjawed, and while not staring, the child was still swaying about and refusing to sit still behind his mother, ever moving in such a fashion as to unsubtly glimpse another corner of Bliss’s form. Still, Bliss did not mind—Better to let the boy get a glimpse of what’s out there, under the Throne, she thought to herself.
“Ms. Carmichael?” the call came after about fifteen minutes. She turned to her right and nodded to the man leading ahead of the teller, the latter of whom returned to her post and gestured Bliss along. “Hello, Uzher Yutzov, the manager for this branch of Skyview Bank. I understand you would like to open a line of credit with us. Please come right this way so we can hash out some of the details therein,” the man invited her, extending a hand out toward her, though there was some distance between them still. She approached him and took it, and to his credit, she thought, he spent only a few moments looking at her chest. Better than most.
Yutzov led Bliss across the main floor of the bank to a smaller ‘room’ with walls that raised high enough to obscure those behind them, but did not reach to the ceiling. Yes, Bliss noted, the surveillance sensors could still see her. That may complicate her intended approach to the situation. “So,” Yutzov began, closing the door to the sequestered room behind him. “Ms. Carmichael, do you have some idea of the nature of the account you would like to open with Skyview, and what sort of holding capital are you committing for your initial investment?”
“I do not know your account types, and I’ll be committing to this,” she replied, reaching under her shirt and drawing forth the Rosette I had given her. Yutzov’s face paled at once. She tried to wield it in a way it would not have been visible from the sensorium, but she was unsure of her potential success in that regard. “However, you may not hold it. Do you know what this is?”
“I—I do—I—oh Merciful Emperor, you’re here for the laundering, aren’t you?” Yutzov cried. Bliss raised an eyebrow in mild curiosity, but had more pressing issues at mind. “I’ll confess at once, and give you what you need to know, but please, I have a family, and—”
“Cease your blubbering, Mr. Yutzov, and compose yourself. I need, rather, the Inquisition has need of an emergency line of credit with your bank, as I said. Provide us with this, and we will take that into consideration when it comes to your institution’s laundering,” Bliss leveraged, slipping the Rosette back under her shirt before crossing her arms behind her back again, puffing her chest out as much to intimidate as to, as usual, entice. As usual, it worked, and Yutzov nodded eagerly while loosing a sigh of relief. “I do not know the sort of credit lines Skyview offers, nor do I care to know. The Inquisition needs immediate funds for an emergency operation on this planet. Assist us, and not only will we pay our dues—as much as we see fit, given the crimes of your laundering—but Skyview will also find itself in Inquisitorial appreciation in the future. Now, can this process be expedited? Time is of the essence.”
“It—oh, Throne, thank you—it can, but it may still take some time. An hour, maybe two, for the proper checks and authorizations,” Yutzov admitted.
“That will suffice, if only barely. Hop to it, Mr. Yutzov, and if any superiors get in your way, refer them to me and carry on without their consent. They will come to understand or be replaced,” Bliss replied. Yutzov opened his mouth to speak, possibly to rejoice, but wisely thought better of it and nodded to Bliss before departing from the room. Bliss listened to his footsteps to await his full departure, then reached for her vox. “One to two hours, I’ll have the line for you.”
“Cutting it close, Bliss,” I voxxed back.
“You’ll have it in your timeframe, sir, even if heads need roll,” Bliss assured me, finally taking a seat at an ornamental, stone desk that, indeed, featured pictures of Yutzov and his family. Bliss’s eyes fixed to them for a time.
“Try to keep yours where it is. And stop calling me sir. Cease communication until you have the line,” I replied, leaving her to her business, while I picked up with mine.
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***
Infiltrating a criminal underworld would not have been a simple task for a militant Inquisitor such as myself, were I not also a psyker. As it was, the powers of suggestion proved invaluable at opening doors otherwise shut and at pushing aside curious eyes. Now, Aerialon was not a Hive World, but rather a Developed one. That did not preclude the existence of a criminal underworld as often arose in Underhives like on Skardak’s Reach. Indeed, most worlds in the Imperium tended to have a criminal element to them, which many an Arbites would spend their lives dissecting and dismantling. Inquisitors, however, rarely trifled with simple criminals as such, unless they began to pursue the means of cults or Xenos aid.
However, that did not mean we did not know our way around the darker aspects of our beloved Imperium. And again, being a psyker made things a bit easier; names were easy to find, and with them I could build repute and falsify intent. I knew full well that waving around an Inquisitorial Rosette in such spaces would not find me much obedience—indeed, obedience was unlikely at all to begin with, and instead my primary goal was of contractual agreement. To such ends, a man named Charon acted as my guide to a den known as the Raft. Charon did not speak much, but his head was far from simple to navigate. It took some doing to find the name of the Raft in his mind, and it took further convincing still to get him to bring me there, but I managed eventually, thinking to myself that Bliss likely would have been more capable in this regard. She was undoubtedly better at this sort of thing than I was.
Regardless, the Raft. I gained entrance to it from a wine cellar of a tavern known as Redview, and thereafter followed a labyrinthian maze of winding corridors that, without Charon, I would have been lost within. Having previously felt around a pitch-black underground temple with my mind, I can comfortably say this complex was much vaster and more complicated, even if it was lit up in most areas. But, with Charon as my guide, I did indeed find my way. The Raft itself was hardly something one could call ‘afloat.’ It was a series of girders, structural support beams, and scaffolding all thrown together throughout a cavern to create small structures and simple abodes. Blue, red, and gold lights illuminated various ‘shops’ that the Raft’s denizens frequented, from a local medic to an arms dealer to a bounty board, and, of course, to a bar. Charon gestured for me to head to the bar with but a formless mutter before he retreated into the vast maze we had entered from.
I approached the bar and found its tender to be a single woman wearing a sleeveless tanker’s jacket, her black hair pulled and knotted behind her head, not unlike Bliss’s preferred look. She was cleaning a glass as I approached, and did not turn her face upward to look at me when I arrived. “You’re new here. What are you having?” she asked in a mutter.
“What do you serve?” I asked in return. A question was valuable to a psyker; the psychological process of a mind inventing an answer often left it vulnerable, and indeed, in the process of replying to my query, her mind opened to me. I subsumed terms, lingo, a wealth of information required to fit in in the underbelly of Aerialon.
“If you can find it this side of Cadia, hon, you can find it here,” she replied.
“Glass of Gleece?” I suggested with a shrug.
“Five Thrones,” she nodded, and I provided. I had had that on hand before Bliss had sent me my new line of credit, which I intended to save for a larger task than a drink. “Here you are,” she said, serving me a glass. “Now the real question, hon, is what are you having?”
“Looking for a contracting agent. Urgent status. Payment on completion. Anyone come to mind?” I asked. And indeed, as my view into her head had not been severed, I could tell a handful of individuals came to mind.
“Charon escorted you down here, didn’t he?” she asked. I nodded, then wondered if she could tell I nodded without looking up at me. Her thoughts registered my assent. “Grey sun hat, table on the left, reading the orange book. Address him as Mr. Zark. He’ll ask for your name. Don’t give it to him.”
“Thank you, Ms.…?”
“Not giving you mine, either,” she replied, managing a smirk. “Enjoy the Gleece.”
“I think I will, thanks,” I nodded, taking my glass with me over to the man the bartender had indicated. “Mr. Zark,” I greeted the man. He didn’t look up from his book, but did nod in acknowledging my address. “Bartender recommended you. I’m here to post a contract.”
“And for whom is this contract for?” Zark asked.
“Not giving you that,” I shook my head. He sighed, closed his book, and set it on the table before studying me up and down.
“She does like testing me,” he sighed again. “You’re well-off. Augmetics are fancy, possibly even Master-Crafted. That requires deep connections. You’re not from this world, meaning you can move about the void. There’s scarring around your augmetics, meaning they were given by necessity, not choice. You even have MIU scarring. You’re a soldier, or you were. Now you’re a fixer for a noble house or rogue trader with some frig-you amount of money, but at least you’ll be good for it. Take a seat.”
I did so, taking a moment to glance at the book Zark was reading. The Spheres of Longing, by Gideon Ravenor. I was familiar with it, in passing, though had not touched it myself. Philosophies proved dangerous, in my opinion, especially when from the mind of another Inquisitor. Zark noted my gaze upon his book and asked, “You a fan?”
“Haven’t gotten around to that one yet,” I shook my head.
“Shame, been a good read so far. Well, fixer, what’s the contract?”
“Need a target apprehended. Moderate resistance expected. Target is likely attempting to leave this city by spaceport. There is, again, an urgency to this matter for that reason, though I have shut down IS-41 temporarily, which I believe to have been the nearest spaceport for their escape,” I explained.
“Further evidencing your clout,” Zark muttered, nodding. “Price point, target identification, operational restrictions?”
“Right, well that’s where things complicate,” I sighed, sitting back in my chair. “Target identification,” I started, and then forced an image of the Phaenonite into Zark’s head. It was the very vision I had received from the Xenos-dust, albeit pruned to exclude everything but the Phaenonite in question. Nevertheless, Zark was not expecting such psychic imagery to be bombarded into his brain, and shuddered away from me, recoiling into his chair as well. “Problem?” I asked, knowing full well what his issue was.
“No, sir, sorry, sir,” Zark murmured, on the verge of breaking down, but not quite there yet. “Am I going to forget this at some point?” he asked. I understood, as it was my intent to make the imagery recur in his head should it begin to slip away.
“When I will it,” I shrugged. “Can you transcribe or dictate that imagery to potential customers?” I asked. He nodded eagerly. “Excellent. Price point: Four hundred thousand Thrones,” I suggested, trying to keep hushed. Zark’s eyes widened and he mouthed the number in response. I nodded to confirm any doubts he may have had. “Like you said, we’ll be good for it, my client and I,” I added, leaning into the role of ‘fixer’ for someone else. “Restrictions: Minimize civilian casualties. I do not expect this operation can succeed without collateral damage, nor do I believe in there being such a thing as excess force. But have your customers aim it at the target as best they can. Are you still with me, Mr. Zark?”
“I…I am, sir,” he nodded, still catching his breath from the psychic bombardment as much as the numerical price tag I was putting on the Phaenonite’s capture.
“How soon can the contract be posted? And I want it open, too, available to any that deign to try.”
“I…uh…one hour? Ninety minutes?” he suggested.
“Get to it, then.”