Burglary at Museum Repository Goes Undetected

“In a shocking turn of events, a burglary at the Alte Pinakothek museum repository went undetected until researchers went to retrieve a collection of valuable Shénzhōu bronzes, scrolls, and gemstone carvings for an upcoming exhibition. The stolen artifacts, valued at over 250,000 Marks, were discovered missing when researchers arrived at the repository this morning.

According to museum officials, the burglars were able to bypass security and make off with the artifacts sometime in the past 24 hours. The authorities have been alerted and are working to track down the perpetrators and recover the stolen items.

The museum has announced that the exhibition, which was set to open in the coming weeks, has been postponed until further notice. Officials are urging anyone with information about the burglary to come forward and assist in the investigation.

This is a developing story, and more information will be provided as it becomes available.”

“Alte Pinakothek Repository Burglary”

The Standard Morning

Badruddin Ibragimov

October 23rd, 2194 ESC

Angelos Mountains, Califia

United Republics of Teivena

Unknown Reality

January 12th, 2195 ESC

Althea had tracked the pilot to a local highway. The tracks were a week old, but she had followed the dried blood he had left here and there on the ground and the trees. He had collapsed just in sight of the road, and there were a lot of depressions where someone had pulled over in a wheeled vehicle, retrieved him, and then driven towards the small town.

“Looks like Mr.Camarero was picked up by a local,” Althea said on her subvocal microphone. “Any luck tracking the cargo?”

“Nope,” Taylor Giradot said laconically. “Gonna have to send out some drones to check the area. Looks like the creatures are used to this environment. There were no broken branches and lots of large hops to boulders and such, so one could track them. You might have a point that they could be sentient saurials. They’re pretty tricky.”

Althea peered at the road. The road was old, but they had seemed to upkeep it with a slurry made of sand, rubber, and petroleum. Looking at the signage, she saw that the script was different, and they would need to adapt any fake IDs they used to the local variety. “Request to operations. May we send some drones into the local town to scan written language and local clothing to see if our outfits won’t stand out too much when we retrieve the client?” Althea asked.

“That’s a good idea. Though you are pretty tall,” Taylor replied.

She paused and said, “I am well within the human height range. Therefore, I shall not trigger your height complex by wearing heels.”

There was laughter from Taylor, “You’re damned silly, del Valle. Fine. We’ll also see if the drones can find out where Mr. Camarero ended up.”

“Jail, private home, or hospital,” Althea supplied. “If they were uncaring, they would have let the poor man bleed out here.”

“Could be slavers?” Taylor said cynically.

“Could be,” Althea answered as she headed back towards the ship. “Though once a society has hit industrialization, they generally don’t deem it cost-effective.” She padded back, trying to only hit places where she wouldn’t leave a footprint, but it was very difficult, and she was sure she had failed.

“The Feds,” Taylor said in her earpiece.

She grunted back. Yes, that is a great example. I still can’t figure out these humans, Althea thought. “They’re an outlier. Why engineer a slave species to make yourselves feel superior? It seems counterproductive.”

The Federacy had indeed made recombs as servants and as an underclass. This brought together the mass of humanity after the terrible Unification wars of their reality that turned their version of earth into a poisoned, radioactive wasteland where everyone lived in underground bunker cities. Althea shuddered involuntarily. She had been through the Huma Supremacist reality a few times via the Gate system during the war, and their cities made the GmbH look like paradise.

Fake skies, brutalist apartment blocks, recombs scurrying around doing their owners’ bidding while the humans themselves did the State’s bidding. They also used slaves to work on the great underground farms that fed everyone when robots would have been more efficient. The feelings of misery permeated the place, and her troop wanted out of there as quickly as possible. They had begun colonizing other Realities, and the League was watching them closely to ensure they didn’t try to subjugate any local populations like they had tried with Devonal.

She knew they thought of her people as less than human and little more than robots. Dealing with people from the Federacy was less than pleasant on a casual basis. She was sure she wouldn’t want to be stranded there.

“Santa Onofre,” she suddenly added. “Right. I am being naïve and idealistic.” With the time added to your contract, the contract indenture system was a major problem with Santa Onofre, her company’s base of operations. Interreality Investigations didn’t use indentured labor, but plenty of other companies did. They would try to catch you in a mistake to make your contract last longer than you had signed on for or add monetary penalties that you couldn’t pay out with your earnings, effectively turning you into a slave.

Especially if you were pretty, she thought. They would always try to trip me up harder than the others. Tiki said it was because they wanted to sell my contract to the highest bidder, so I would be a ….

Althea suddenly blushed embarrassedly at the myriad of supposed indentured professions that her wife enumerated if she had allowed herself to be caught by a contract. She hadn’t even considered the possibilities. Yes, I am naïve.

“We will also look to see if they have him in any slave or indenture markets,” she added. “But from the radio signals I have been monitoring, I do not think it is a problem here.”

She arrived back at the wreck site, where about half of the crew was down among the wreckage taking pictures and checking the cargo. The Skywarden had floated closer to the crash site and was now completely open on the bottom with robotic arms and cranes lowering to the plane for recovery. The ill-fated Navigator’s body was in a body bag and on a stretcher with the Tigre healer Beiner filling out paperwork. Taylor stood there against a tree smoking a cigarette, which made Althea’s nose wrinkle in disgust at the smell. He smiled and waved at her, happy to see her make an expression.

“They aren’t that bad,” the man said with a grin as he crushed it against the tree.

“You don’t have my senses,” Althea countered as she wove around the workers on site to where he was standing. “You would be able to smell how vile it is.”

“You didn’t complain about the pipe,” Taylor countered.

“It was less vile,” Althea sniffed. Then, changing the subject, she said, “Drone footage yet?”

He pulled out a small data slate and turned it on with a touch. It was one of the newer models with a holographic screen for unaugmented people. She saw both the augmented reality and the real-world hologram, which were slightly out of sync. A trio of small towns appeared. A main street that linked the towns and also looped around the lake was linked to a few other roads that went over the mountain to the desert to the north, the homesteads to the south and east, and the main road out of town to the west. The main town with larger structures was south of the lake. It included several ski lodges, a grocery store, a shopping street, a bowling alley, a small hospital, a government services building, and a small police station.

“Looks like there are many small cabins. That is the word for the small houses made of logs, right?” Althea said.

“Yeah,” Taylor replied. “Resort town. I’m guessing.”

The tiny drones had flown over the main drag shop names in the odd script. One even landed near a small metal box with glass windows to look inside at a collection of papers with writing and pictures on them. Althea recorded it quickly and translated it. Fewer letters, twenty-four versus the thirty in GmbH German. Wait, no. There are thirty-eight letters if you count the two modification sounds, I think? Althea thought. What a weird script. An overcomplicated simplification.

“Bribe money?” Althea asked. “Can we print some? Unfortunately, I am not detecting any data networks of any kind other than ours. Also, should I scout out the town while everyone is asleep?”

The senior agent rubbed his chin in thought. “We’ll have a drone check out a cash register in a bank so we can print some forgeries on the fabber. Small bills only.” He looked at her. “You’ve got his scent, right?”

“Yes, I have the pilot’s scent. If he’s been walking around town, I can find him,” she replied. Small spherical drones with tiny pincer hands came down from the ship to start collecting the floating liftstone fragments. Some of the crew was spreading out to plant stakes for the holographic screens that would link up with the emitters in the Skywarden to disguise the crash site.

“Captain Clarke,” Taylor said.

“How can I help you, Giradot?” the Captain’s reply came over their earpieces.

“How long till the site is cleaned up?” Taylor asked.

“Maybe two days? I would have left already if we were under fire,” Clarke answered flatly. “Though this is a pretty good payday if we collect the pilot alive and return most of the cargo. Whatever was in the cage wasn’t on the insurance manifest, though I’m pretty certain they fall under the prohibited trade items. So there’s a bonus if we bring back smuggled items to Santa Onofre.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Althea sighed inwardly. Contraband items weren’t able to be legally insured, so they were often either skipped on the manifest or labeled as something else. Then, when a company found out their ship had been recovered, they would head to the recovery crew’s company and pay them a “finders’ fee” to keep their mouths shut. They’d return the items to a place like Santa Onofre where they weren’t illegal.

I really don’t like that part of the job, Althea thought. It feels like we’re breaking the law, but leaving them with uncontacted Realities could be worse.

“del Valle,” the Captain said, bringing her out of her thoughts.

“Yes, Captain?” Althea answered in a monotone as she saw the holo screens for the site flicker into an active state, hiding both the Skywarden and crash site from visuals.

“You’re cleared to head to the town. Avoid contact if you can. Take a flight pack, and some data relays so we can try to find him and keep in contact with you over there without putting out a signal the locals can pick up,” the Tigre growled.

“Yes, Sir,” Althea said. She looked over to Taylor and raised an eyebrow.

“Fuck that. I’m cold enough already, del Valle,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re my junior. So you get to do the scut work. Besides, if you find the pilot sooner rather than later, we can leave earlier, and I can get back to my wife and kids.”

She shrugged and nodded. Yes, I can get back to Tiki faster if we find him and those creatures. At least she’s safe at home.

Althea climbed up one of the cables hanging from the Skywarden’s recovery bay as nimbly as a monkey. Her claws and strength gave her an advantage over humans in this regard, but they often became annoyed if she mentioned it.

Two of the recovery operators gave her the stink eye. “Wait till we lower the elevator, del Valle!” the female yelled at her.

“No time,” Althea said with a shrug and went into the small equipment room. She grabbed her flight pack and loaded Network repeaters on it. Of course, the true Network wouldn’t be available until a Gate was installed here. Still, a smaller version consisting of the ship’s database and the repeaters would exist, albeit temporarily for their purposes. It would also work as a detection network for stolen cargo. Hopefully, the saurials were outfitted with collars of ankle bands.

The recovery operators rolled their eyes at her and locked the cargo elevator in place as hydraulics lowered the guide rails and temporary shaft that would assist the ground crew.

“Oh, we will need the ground vehicle to retrieve the cargo tomorrow,” Althea said as she walked on the catwalk towards the two operators. “Agent Giradot should be down below somewhere. You may need to localize it from scanning data.”

The make operator made a face and shook his head. “Yeah, we’ll talk with him. Need a ride down? The elevator’s almost ready, and we don’t need you putting holes in any more cables.”

Althea finished strapping the boxy experimental flight pack on and extended the liftstone pods. The pods were on small telescoping rods sticking out from the top of the pack at a forty-five-degree angle. The liftstones were contained in small pods on the end of the control rods. They underwent a series of adjustments as the cybernetic systems connected wirelessly before electricity ran through them to lift her off the catwalk.

“No need,” she said and stepped off the catwalk to fly out from the Skywarden’s bay.

“Crazy borg,” she overheard the woman say as she flew away.

The night was chilly but not too horrible for her body as it adjusted the internal temperature to compensate. Mechanese bodies were often seven to nine degrees hotter than human bodies at forty-four to forty-six. Heat and cold were often not annoyances to her people unless they were above or below a certain threshold.

She flew over the treetops turning to look at the area where the Skywarden should be. Interwoven illusion spells and holographic projectors had made both ships disappear from the visual spectrum. If you looked hard, you could see a slight distortion that wove around the edges, but she doubted a human or animal could tell by sight alone that anything was amiss. She turned and flew towards the small town, doing barrel rolls and loops when she was over the forest, away from anything. A giggle came from her, and she allowed herself to smile. Flying with a pack like this had been one of the truly enjoyable parts of her training. Unfortunately, only full-body cyborgs or Mechanese could control this version. There was another version in the works for Mages, but it had a few bugs.

“A giggle, del Valle?” Taylor’s teasing voice came over the radio.

She controlled herself immediately. “Giradot. I did not….”

“Think anyone was listening, yeah,” he chuckled. “Enjoy flying, but don’t get caught. Also, remember there’s only like an hour’s worth of juice in that thing unless you can use your body as a battery?”

Althea grunted, “No, I cannot do that.”

Taylor laughed. “Hey, at least you don’t need a repair bay when you need to heal up.”

“I’m softer than one of them too.” Althea patterned and drooped her ears when she realized that Taylor had started laughing.

Twenty minutes later, Althea had placed three of the biodegradable plastic Network repeaters in a line towards the town. The clay-like mouldable devices were easily hidden in the tops of trees, eaves of buildings, and at the highest point of the town, a church steeple. They would start to decay within a few weeks and would melt if anyone without a properly coded datasphere tried to tamper with them. Her connection with the ship was strong now, and she was able to map out the area relatively easily.

Let’s see, lots of people, not seeing our pilot, Althea thought as she used the anti-gravity of the liftstone pack to leap from the roof of the church across the street to the top of the shopping street. She looked around and eyed the two-story hospital, but all the windows were closed against the cold. On the other side of the street was the local police station. They’d probably have to check there too. His cybernetics aren’t pinging back. If he wakes up, we’ll be able to find him immediately. Until then, I’ll have to try to sniff him out.

Althea sniffed the air, hoping to catch the pilot’s scent. Instead, a heavenly scent came down the block, some sort of pastry, chicken, and vegetables. She tilted her head and looked over the edge of the shopping street. Many of the stores were closed, and people in outfits reminiscent of the old movies that Tiki loved to watch were walking around. Women wore skirts and dresses despite the cold, and men wore hats and trousers. They all wore hats and overcoats against the cold, except those she tagged as less well off.

There looked to be a theater, a few shops like pharmacies, a general store, and a restaurant that were open. There was also a Store selling primitive vid screens showing the area's latest news. She listened to the quietly spoken words as written ones flashed across the screen. The sounds correlated, and she quickly built a language database as she heard people down on the street speak in the same dialect of almost NewHomian English.

She looked towards the restaurant to see the special on a sign, something called a chicken pot pie, when there was a flash of golden light on the street. Althea blinked and stared at it and shook her head a little. A young girl dressed in a nightgown appeared suddenly in the middle of the street between two cars driving in opposite directions. Golden fireflies slowly whirled around her as she looked around and soundlessly whooped in joy. She quickly dodged out of the traffic, letting Althea release a breath and relax her muscles, which were tensing to leap to the child’s rescue. The fireflies followed her as she moved.

The girl skipped and leaped like a child of Althea’s caste out of the traffic and over the fencing to one side of the street. She started staring into the restaurant's windows and looking at people’s clothing and faces. People walked past her like she wasn’t there at all - even when she hopped in front of them and made faces at them. Althea switched to infrared sight and then the ultraviolet spectrum. The smiling, happy redhead didn’t appear on either of those spectrums.

A coldness swept through her heart. The girl happily went back and forth on that side of the road and stopped to watch the vids for sale. She looked up at Althea and almost swore that the girl looked directly at her. She sat down on the roof, hiding behind the building’s façade. No, no, I am not seeing this, she thought and held her head in her hands. Shaking her head, Althea calmed herself down. There’s nothing there. No one else saw it. There is no girl there.

When she looked back, the girl was gone. She tilted her head and looked up and down the street. There was a glow down an alley, but she pointedly ignored it. She growled a bit and let out a snort. I will not let that agent of Lí Chasse back in my head again. The phantoms aren’t coming back. If anything, she would talk to Tiki, who could explain things to her.

Calming down, Althea keyed her microphone. “Returning. I have an idea for local clothing. Our suits should suffice,” Althea said as she lifted off the roof using the liftstone pack. “Network in place. I suggest we go to the Sheriff and hospital tomorrow.”

“Your heart rate is elevated, del Valle,” Taylor replied. “Everything ok out there?”

Swallowing, Althea replied, “Yes, everything is fine. Unfortunately, I did not find our pilot. Though I suggest, we replicate some local currency.” She got up, ran to the roof's edge, and leaped straight up, activating her flight pack to shoot up into the starry sky. Looking behind, she made sure no one had seen her before heading back toward the Skywarden.

“Oh, why’s that other than bribes?” Taylor asked.

“They have a place that smells pretty good,” Althea replied.

He snorted back, “You and your damn stomach, del Valle. I’m surprised you’re not a tub of lard.”

She smiled to herself. “Tiki would make beans out of me if I were one,” she replied as she cleared the town and made a looping zig-zagging pattern back to the ship.

“No, thank you,” Taylor replied. “Your wife’s cooking is too good to be polluted like that. You’d make it taste like Nutripaste.” He paused and added, “But on a serious note, head back here. We’ve got some complications.”

“On my way,” Althea replied. She didn’t like the sound of that one bit and hurried back to the ship without any extra flourishes.

Ten minutes later, she was taking off the flight pack under the illusory holographic screens. Taylor was standing right in her line of sight, and he gestured her to the wreckage in the snow where some crewmembers were standing around. She saw one of the smart crates was folded open, and its contents were being counted. There was an underlying scent of sandalwood and jute incense which normally meant mages.

“What do we have?” Althea asked as she walked up. More than the normal smuggled materials?”

“A serious problem,” Taylor answered. “This stuff can’t be sold back to the client. So we have to report it. Captain Clarke is up there getting ready to set up a radio call.”

Althea blinked. That was serious. Sometimes an interReality radio signal could be picked up by the locals, usually as weird interference, but if they were technically adept enough, they could even track them. She had no desire to be dissected by the locals as they tried to figure out her body.

“So, we’re leaving?” Althea asked.

Taylor shook her head. “Nah, we have to get the other two crates and retrieve the contraband. We also have to pick up the pilot.”

“The creatures?” Altheas asked. “What about them?”

Taylor shrugged, “Probably a secondary concern now.”

“So, what are we retrieving? I smell mage. Is it spell crystals?”

“Kind of. Spell crystals and spellbooks, but they aren’t just normal ones. These are from the Imperial archives in Shenzhou. They’re supposed to be in a museum on Erde somewhere.” Taylor walked over with her to the smart crates and tables where they were inventorying them. Several scrolls in bronze tubes were laid out next to sparkling gems, some as big as Althea’s fist. They were carved into fanciful shapes like dragons, oxen, turtles, phoenixes, and tigers. Many of them had holes where a string could be run through them so they could be attached to a belt or hidden inside sleeves.

Althea patterned in annoyance as her ears splayed out. “These look like very powerful ones,” she said quietly. “The sizes and intricacy of carving show the power inherent in each stone.”

Taylor nodded next to her. “Yeah, this is a bit bigger than an insurance fraud claim now. How much do you want to bet that the animals were headed to the same place?”

Althea’s periwinkle eyes shifted to her partner. “A beastmaster? I do not like the sound of that,” she said, taking in the sight of the gems again. “I have a bad history with them.”

“Probably not Sidhe,” Taylor replied. “Could it be someone wanting to know their techniques?”

Her nose wrinkled, and she shook her head, “I do not think you can learn their techniques unless you are born with them. They cast magic like I weave data. It’s inherent.”

“Your prejudice is showing, del Valle,” Taylor said with a little smirk. “There aren’t Sidhe behind every conspiracy.”

She shook her head, “I know. I am sorry for that.”

Althea took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then she said, “I have fought them for many years, and their magic feels different. I have even seen some of them learn League magics to adapt to the lesser mana of their home now.” Then, she paused and looked at him flatly, “If someone wished to learn their techniques, they would have to be a native of a high mana Reality.”

He nodded, “That’s something we can both agree is bad. I doubt they’d be smuggling spell scrolls for bountiful crops or making happy fluffy bunny toys. If we’re extremely unlucky, they could be biomantic plague spells that the locals could set off by accident. Nobody deserves that.” He looked over in the direction of the town and lit another cigarette.