July Prompt Request Closing Soon

Dear all,

My July Prompt Request will be closing for prompts and signal boosts in approximately twelve (12) hours!

If you want to prompt and haven't yet, then now is the time to do it!

Rix

Looking For A Clue

I wrote this to kelkyag's second prompt.  It's a sequel to Slow Mail.

Segwin Industries skirts the boundaries of not being a good corporate citizen.  It’s not that they don’t report to any Stock Exchange because as their shares aren’t traded, they don’t need to.  The maze of holding companies based offshore to anywhere and the subsidiary companies kept to a size that avoids government reporting and taxation requirements might be eccentric but not suspicious in a retailer of household domestic items but rings alarm bells in a manufacturer of items requiring end-user certificates.  Not to mention their firms that specialize in supplying people qualified to use items requiring end-user certificates.

The Agency and Segwin Industries have had a number of run-ins over the years.  These have mainly been disagreements about whether something they were doing was legitimate pursuit of their business interests or frankly illegal.  The Agency’s been winning a lot lately and it seems Segwin’s looking for another way around our road block.  They’re backing Kildaire in the election and one of his promises is to close the Agency down.

Once they do that, Runyon’s may not be the only death.  They’re the sort of people who figure that once we’re off the government payroll no-one will care.

What we need is a smoking gun.  One we can take to court.  One that will drag in their executives so we can open up the whole ant heap, for once.

Runyon’s death and the steps taken to destroy the information he had collected are our only legitimate subjects of inquiry.  If you want to take things to court you can’t just do everything and anything you can think of.  It was Addison who came up with the idea.  He’d come back from the pub to pick up his coat and Mzeke, who was on night shift, found him staring at the map of Runyon’s last movements.

When Mzeke asked him what he was doing he said, “All those turns, road crossings and almost doubling back.  It’s like he was seeing people in front of him, isn’t it?  Would they have kept in touch by phone, do you think?”

Burn phones, of course.  Memo to all staff, if you’re using a burn phone for work never give the number to your girlfriend or kids.

We found a link.

Recruitment Drive

I wrote this to aldersprig's second prompt.  It follows on from Tilly.

Tilly had unwanted company, of course, but no-one could object to her attending the planetary amateur games, could they?

Except the clean cut, perfectly uniformed lieutenant did.  His latest complaint was, “We shouldn’t be doing this!”

“Why not?”  Tilly was leading the way through a back route to the pistol shooting’s change rooms.

“We don’t have tickets.”

“We’re not sitting in seats or otherwise watching the competition, so we don’t need tickets.”  Tilly was reading the labels on doors now, obviously looking for something or somewhere in particular.

“Getting in the way we did was against regulations!”  He was hissing at her now.

“Against service regulations,” she corrected him absent mindedly.  “I’m not in the service so they don’t apply to me.  As for you, it’s not like I made you follow me.”

“I’m under orders!”

“To follow me anywhere?”  She knocked on a door labelled with a male competitor’s name.

“Within certain public decency limits.”

She looked him up and down.  “Interesting.  We should discuss your ship skills sometime soon.”

The door in front of them opened and a seven foot tall man loomed above them.  “Tilly!”  He sounded pleased to see her and then, “I was sorry to hear about Killen and the others.  What can I do for you?”

“You busy after the competition?”  Tilly was keeping her voice light.  “I’m hiring for a trip beyond the border.”

“To do what?”  The competitor’s pass around the tall man’s neck was in the name of Perrup Ferrisson.

“The guys crossed the border in hot pursuit of Jeredghal after he tried to blow us to kingdom come in a bar here.  The ship was found as a cloud of debris a week and a half later.  Listed as lost with all hands.”  She shrugged.

“And?”  Ferrisson was looking at her intently.

“There wasn’t enough organic debris to satisfy me that they were all on board when the ship blew.  Jeredghal takes prisoners.  There are three places within reasonable travel distance he could have gone to sell off such…acquisitions.  I want to check them for survivors.”

“And that’s all?”  The big man regarded her with a serious expression and the lieutenant was flabbergasted.  This had not been in his briefing.

“On this trip, yes,” Tilly confirmed.  “This is reconnaissance and hopefully rescue.  Those don’t mix well with revenge.  I’m offering your usual rates, of course.”

“Then I’m in,” Ferrisson smiled.  “Just let me deal with this competition first.”