The slow-rotation desert-planet, Ceria. “They never sleep on Ceria,” they say, because one “day” on Ceria lasts a couple of weeks for a normal habitable planet. Why someone chose this to be the mercantile and business capital of the galaxy, lord only knows. Half the time it’s blistering hot and the other half it plummets to forty below zero and only gets colder until the sun come up a week later. Water doesn’t stay on the surface for very long, again god knows why. Plants don’t survive, and thus, the climate is as unbearable as anyone could imagine. The only plants that do survive are the two indigenous species of plants, both arid succulents. Though it may technically be five if you want to argue with a botanist.

We flew into the atmosphere and found our location, fortunately only thirty hours after sunrise, meaning this city had been defrosting for just over a day. It was moderately hot and they had to wear breathers just to stand outside as the oxygen levels were also unfair to most organic life units.

Another anomaly: this city was sitting right on top of the surface, no underground cave to shelter itself from the weather, no climatizing that might be nice to customers. No. Because everyone wanted their business’s sign out in the open, so you have to suffer for the sake of advertisement, and suffer they did as well.

The temperature had already skyrocketed and in such dry heat, nearly melted any plastic shoes or boots, burnt toes and heels and, for the sake of shelter, caused customers to walk in faster than anyone would anywhere else. The “drive them in” policy fully applied when no one wanted, or could, stay outside. I’m sure the same applies when it was forty below.

Businesses as usual.

Fortunately we had taken the closest parking spot and they didn’t have to walk very far.

Noble Inventions. Headquarters of Gerome’s franchise and sponsorship program. They walked inside and we were immediately recognized as known clients, appointment already made in advance. They walked into the boss’s office immediately.

The boss looked up, and instead of going into a blind rage, as Gerome expected, he simply slid a small stack of papers over to him. "These are your terminating contract papers. Please sign and initial the appropriate lines."

“My secretary will help with that.” Gerome said, sliding them over to Ginger.

"Are you going to investigate us?" Gerome asked.

"Why? You're here, you didn't put up a fight and I’d have thought you’d already knew what you’d be here for."

It wasn't worth fighting. The whole lab was gone, everything literally picked up and transplanted into a Bolrag ship and zooming off into unknown territory.

"I guess you're right." Gerome said. He started signing the papers that were handed back to him. There was no way out of it now. They'd even be in debt from all the loans that had amassed by Noble Inventions investing in him. Nearly a million had to be paid back and there was no plan to make that happen.

The boss did ask one thing. "So what did happen? You had me convinced when you started that is was going to work.”

Gerome sighed as he gave him the signed papers back to him. "Well, It did work. Just not on the scale that I had expected and there was still a few quirks to work out of it."

"It did work?" The boss asked. "Do you have any proof? You had never reported anything."

"Because the scientists hadn't reported anything. They had always said, 'Nearly there. Just trying to figure out the blah-blah' saying how they hadn't even finished step one. Then when I went down there, It had worked. I tried it on a rat, we called him Freddy, and he did everything I told him to do. Then when leaving my office, I walked out and found that Freddy had followed me all the way back to my office. And he could talk to me!"

"So where is Freddy now?"

"He right here in my pocket. I couldn't leave him, we’re attached."

"Where is he?" He repeated.

Gerome looked at Ginger as she stared at his pocket. He looked back at the boss. Gerome was hesitating. This wasn't part of the plan.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Freddy?"

Freddy was already awake. He climbed out of Gerome's pocket. He squeaked.

"So what did he say?" The boss asked.

"He just squeaked."

This wasn't part of any plan. Freddy must have been as nervous as Gerome, due to the emotional transferring and Ginger’s previous hints at “accidentally” eating him. So he squeaked.

Gerome picked him up and put him on the table. "So, how do I show you this works?"

The boss said, "Tell Freddy to go over and pick up this pencil."

Freddy did it before Gerome had started to speak.

"Wow, well done." The boss was getting amazed. "Now tell him to do a dance."

Freddy started to rhythmically wiggle right on the table.

"Gerome, why didn't you tell me about this?" He asked.

"Well sir, it only happened just after you called and told us to come back to headquarters."

“You could have just called me back.”

"The Bolrags were invading the ship and hi-jacked the whole lab."

"What?! And you just stood there and let it happen?"

"Sir, you know how they are. Big and furry.”

“Smelly." Ginger added.

"And they had guns, I didn't have anything to stop them by myself. They don't allow weapons on that cruise ship."

"What the hell happened? Why did they find you?"

Gerome told him the story how Yanku lent him thousands to get up and going in the first place, but it still left a string not yet pulled. Yanku already kept a detached eye on Gerome and by making third party deals through other Bolrags, he could easily find him. But then what made him come at this time? Who led Yanku to the lab right at that minute?

"Who else knew about the lab?" The boss asked.

"Well just us, maybe some cleaning employees of the ship.” Gerome palmed his face. “The Scientists! They were never there! Not even when I brought in Yanku."

"What are their names?"

"Henry Jones and Bill Franco."

The boss called in his secretary. Another Xeno Feline. Ginger sat rigid. The apparent reason being that Felines meeting one another on other planets get very territorial. It wasn’t a normal reaction, and especially in Xenobia it would be a sight for sore eyes to see another Feline, male or female.

So she walked in and made eye contact, kept it for most of the time as she followed the boss’s orders.

"Tammy, could you get me some background data on the scientists from this man's office. Henry Jones and Bill Franco. It's Gerome and Ginger's 'employees'."

"Yes boss,” she said, and left the office.

Ginger visibly relaxed.

Moments passed by. Nobody said a thing. Waiting for a handful of documents which could sort this whole catastrophe out. But Gerome was so tense and fidgety that you could practically hear his thoughts: Boy, this is classic, get sold out by my own employees. Who do they think they are? Undercover cops?

The same lines repeated through Ginger’s head a few more times before Tammy came back in. She was holding a tablet and said that all the data was there. "Fake aliases. They hadn't done a very good job at hiding their criminal records."

Gerome was surprised, as expected. Another thought from Gerome hit Ginger in the face as if he said it aloud: The scientists were fake!

The boss looked at the documents. "Direct connection to the Bolrags, specifically Yanku, operator of the black market, for the most part, selling to and from most of the Bolrags’s claimed planets.”

"That clears everything up," Ginger said optimistically. "Looks like Yanku had put them there for us, Gerome took the bait. They made the machines and used all our money. Then when it was all done, they took it before you could realize what had happened and they made all the profit."

Gerome went back to his usual look from the past day, gloomy. “And I still owe him thousands from that deal two years ago.”

"No you don't." Ginger said. The boss looked at her curiously. "You don't owe him anything. Not after that backstab."

“I could owe him a visit with a few of my friends, Jack, Fer, Friction, maybe a few others.”

“Whatever you’re thinking I can do it just fine. But I won’t and neither will you. We made a promise remember. Fair and legal, not back to our old ways.” A hint to old promise, to a new life.

It was hard for Gerome to brighten up about anything now. The boss was still looking through the files on the tablet.

"Did you see what the Bolrags have been doing recently?" The boss asked. "They started to send reconnaissance missions to this planet way out on the edge of the Galaxy. Not even a name for it. Was once a planet mined for it’s gold and other rare metals but now it's left populated by its old left-over races from way back then, nearly indigenous now, but wasn’t even that old really, a few thousand years ago. Doing a bit of research, keeping up with competition.” He added.

Gerome took the tablet. Maybe there was a way to get back at Yanku. “Getting back” is what they do best. But that was years ago, different circumstances, different people, different places, and a pact which landed them here.

Yet, there is a time, and a place, which bring us back to the old times… "Back to business?" Ginger said quietly, looking to Gerome.

Gerome looked up, and the same thought came to him. "I tried to quit, but I can’t get away." He picked up Freddy with love and put him carefully in his breast pocket. “We made a promise, we’re together because we decided to change our lives.”

“We have changed,” she said, “now we’re just working together.”

The boss hadn't caught on yet.

She glanced at the exit, so that only Gerome could see it.

He nodded quietly.

Ginger stepped out before the boss had time to open his mouth and ask what was going on, but Gerome was quick behind and left the office with the papers flying.

"Time to find this planet of their's,” Gerome yelled, running behind me. “It might lead us to some clues and get us closer to Yanku."