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Captain Hector Naudé stood in his office, walking from one end to another, a contemplative look plastered on his face, his comlink active as he talked back and forth, his speech as inquiring as his steps. Hector wore an immaculate clean suit, with a single button on his chest and a gold and blue sash. He had a ring on his index finger.

"yes, vice commander."

"....."

"how long will you be gone for."

"....."

"Two months is really necessary for both of you." The voice on the end grew loud and sharp before the call suddenly ended.

Hector stopped and looked at Albin. "Do you know who that was?" He raised his hand, forestalling all words. "Never mind that it was Guild's vice commander. Orders have come, and all the betas and vice commander and commander have been called back to Earth because of Rowan."

"It's just a formality. It should be no big deal, surely."

This is Rowan Kelly. We are talking about if he's started moving again. No one knows what he can do.

"That does not affect us this far on the platform," Albin said.

Hector shook his head, looking at Albin like a small child who could not see the big picture. "If Rowan is moving, then the Guild of Spiders."

"They can't be moving." Albin tried only to frown as Hector nodded.

"All the Guilds and UNE are not taking chances, and that leaves the administration to the people at the rank of gamma."

Albin did not reply. "He simply let Hector rent his anger."

Hector looked up at Albin, and then there was you. "With all that's going on, you ended up losing a mining team."

Albin had been standing straight, but the remainder of the lost team caused him to stand even straighter and clench his jaw, so he did not reply.

Hector looked up and stopped leaning forward on his desk; he looked up at Albin." I will be relocating you to another station, your last station, a probationary station; think of it as your last chance before you are sent back to Earth."

"You can't."

"I can and I will; in fact, I already have." He pushed forward the papers You will be stationed on the platform. "I hope you understand what that means."

Albin knew what that meant, or rather, he knew that more deeply than anyone else that Earth and the other surface worlds were a cage with restrictions; being restricted to the platform was the road to that cage; it meant that you couldn't level up and that meant you would stagnant, do that long enough and some times you could never reach the highest levels. For someone like Albin, who often got splitting headaches when he fought, it meant his chance of reaching the next level was closed off; it meant Hector was restricting his growth even more and not giving him the opportunity to gain one or two more levels of integration. Albin kept his mouth shut, his jaws clenched, and his eyes straight forward.

"Your new station is with the enforcers you will be escorting escorting Enforcer Natasha Hudson, on her investigations with all the Betas and Deltas gone more and more of gammas and lower ranks are beginning to act up."

"Hector you ..."

Hector raised, and Albin clenched his jaws. Hector reached for his call button, call in enforcer. "Natasha."

Enforcer Natasha Hudson was not the most eye-catching of women; in fact, she was nothing special compared to Albin, one would say, looking at both of them standing side by side. She was a zeta, one of those who could not advance less they risk crippling themselves; she was, for lack of better words, ordinary as far as Seekers went. Her hair was short, exposing the cybernetic augmentations that made up her spine to help her keep up with other seekers of her level.

"Natasha, you wanted help with your investigations ever since you came back. You have requested help; he nodded towards the other man; this is Albin. He will be helping you." "Yes, sir will he listen to my suggestions."

"Of course, they are your investigations. You take the lead." Hector took a seat. "Albin knows his place."

Natasha nodded in confirmation of her role in leading the pair's actions. "So, is there anything else in the records that you have found in the backlogged system? He turned to her and kept talking.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

It was because of her that he was here. Were they playing a game? He could not hold his tongue any more, his fists clenched by his sides. He could not let these people do this and ignore him.

"She is a Zeta. She's a Scriptjack, a hacker." Albin spoke up.

"Albin," Hector turned to him to show respect. "She earned her right to be an enforcer; if you can not control yourself, you leave us and prepare yourself."

Albin stood in the elevator, waiting impatiently for the doors to open; when they did, he stepped out on the mining floor and strode towards the Seeker's station.

"What happened, Albin?" Amelia, the larger-than-life Seeker, asked, following him to his desk with a playful smile on her face.

"It's Hector, I am being reassigned to the platform", his nose flaring.

"You must have pissed him off badly, or was it the mining team you lost" she snorted.

"What do you know?" Albin slammed his hands down on his desk, rose and glared.

"My bad, I didn't know how bad it was", she raised her hands.

Albin glared at the man for a bit longer and settled down. He opened his desk cabinet, grabbed a bag, and pushed his papers, receipts, and everything else on his desk into the bag. He reached for another drawer under his, grabbed his weapon belt filled with knives and short blades and slung it over his shoulder; he looked around, kicked his desk, startling everyone, and then walked out.

---

"Albin, she nodded, "hope a day was enough for you to get your things sorted."

"Do you know why he assigned it to you?"

"If you're asking if I requested it for you specifically, I did not." She looked up from the folder.

If the UNE thought they were going to push him around, they were wrong. They had another thing coming, placing him under a zeta of all things. Hector was going mad with power. He looked at Natasha, turned his head to the side, slightly looking at her desk space, and placed his weapon belt on her desk.

She looked down at worn belt weapons marring her desk and then back up at Albin; her face was blank when she spoke again.

"I will get you a desk when I see your work hours have exceeded a week's time each time." She looked back down, signed a few papers, and placed them under the desk. "It would help if you talked to the quartermaster. We won't be needing those."

Albin felt plain naked. In fact, he felt robbed of all his arms when he got back to the offices. He had been given a locker to stash his uniform, and his blades and daggers had been secured in the office weapon storage. They had asked for his name, and along with a tag, he had watched his belongings being taken and locked behind one of the many secure safes by the quartermaster. In contrast, the quartermaster handed Natasha her weapon belt, which held a personal firearm in the holster.

"A Taser gun, why?" Albin asked, his eyes never leaving the heavy Taser pistol.

She slung it around her waist, pulled her heavy pistol out, placed her hand over the slide and, pulled back, pressed down the plunger in the centre of the slide, causing the slide to go forward. She depressed the magazine, released the button, and removed the magazine.

"Heavy Taser round. four or three shots capable of disrupting gamma abilities." She reinserted the magazine and engaged in safety."drawing my astra will cause the alarms to go off so this is better than nothing."

"hmm"

Natasha looked at him from the side before she stepped away and headed to the merge, where they were holding the dead bodies. Like any police station on the surface worlds, they had a merge that let the UNE investigate the dead bodies found at crime scenes.

"what are we doing here?" Albin asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

Natasha did not answer, walking to a section of a wall where she placed her hand over a screen slate, releasing the seal, and a table body slid into the open.

"This is Otis Berry. His body was found stuffed in a wooden box in the lower districts."

"So."

"Otis Berry is one of those working as a smuggler and is associated with over fifteen killings of Zeta rank seekers."

"An underground smuggler, what else?"

He is dead, a blade to his neck. Either he got careless, or someone much stronger is targeting those in the underground, Natasha said, her face going thoughtful as she looked at the body.

"Did the body have the power gem when they found it?"

"No, the thinking is he was killed and stripped of the class gem."

"So what are you going to do."

"We, she emphasized, looking at the other seekers, are going to the underground. ___

If one entered the underground from the north-end elevator on the higher floors of the platform, one would end up on a busy, shady, dark corridor path in the underground. The streets were filled with shady stools, and their keepers covered their faces and kept to the darkness of their stools.

"Disgusting," Albin said as he stepped into a wet, oily puddle, "did we really have to come here."

Natasha gave him a side glance but said nothing. She was getting to know the man more and more and his causal disregard for those he believed were below him.

Otis Berry has a working relationship with a shopkeeper down here.

"Then you should hurry up and get us out of here."

The torn shop was found more profound in the underground; it was one of the few located in a semi-built building.

The shopkeeper looked up from picking his nose and noticed the blue and gold of the United Nations of Earth. The skinny man reached under his counter and grabbed a kinetic shotgun.

Natasha froze at the sight, and Albin simply raised his hand, treating the man like a nuisance more than anything else.

"Barrier Hold"

Albin raised his hand, encasing the other man in a soft glowing bubble of energy that surrounded his entire body, preventing anything from entering or leaving the space.

"Don't take another step," the man threatened, pointing his gun at the two and using his hand to feel at the barrier encasing him and his eyes frozen open.

"I am an investigator. You know Otis Berry, he was found dead," she asked, regaining her confidence with a gentle smile.

"Did you kill him." the man accused.

"No, not us. We thought you knew who did."

"Fuck you guys, you're trying to frame me," he reached into his pocket and pulled out a come and clicked a button.

"What is that," Natasha asked, looking at the device in the man's hand. "Who have you called?"

"the man smiled, and the next moment, five figures entered the rundown building.

"Do you actually think this proves anything?" Albin mocked.

"surrender, and we will take it easy on you."

"You are all under arrest, surrender, and we will take you in for questioning she shot back.

"You're outnumbered, and Blackwell will want to see you." His eyes flashed in excitement.