“Nah man, I wasn’t scared. Hell, I’m glad it happened – you see how many extra digits my account now has? Look, for all the shit surrounding it, Keepergate was the best thing that happened to my job as a pilot since the S-Drive. Sure, I actually have to worry about FTL travel, either risking it with a computer or working on a Cambiar ship, but you think that’s really a big problem? Please, have a look around you. For someone like me, on the non-combat side of Tripwire, my job is as cushy as it gets in the CCH. Half the time, I just watch a movie and put the autopilot o- wait, are you recording this?” – Yahin Hams, Cargo Pilot for Tripwire Services, 2259. Recorded as part of the ‘Undercover Executive’ series produced in collaboration with Glass Tip Productions.

  Dr Savage was finding that trying to take apart a highly advanced, reality altering device with the capability of teleporting matter across the stars became a slightly more difficult task when an alien was attempting to get into one’s pants. Literally.

  “Chel-Lin, I’m trying to disconnect the harmonic resistor, please,” Elias said. “Of all the times to try to ‘experiment’, now is not the best.”

  Dr Daksira, an honorific that Elias felt strange to use for his overly forward lab partner after taking her to pound town the night before, had barely restrained herself since they had begun work in the lab. He had hoped they would get some serious work done that day, now that the first checkpoint was behind them. Many months of mostly unsupervised work laid before them, but as long as they had something worthwhile to show off from their cover projects by then, they would be fine. At the rate their dismantling of the S-Drive was going, though, Elias felt that he might need a few more years.

  “I just want to see how adjusting your… other limb… might affect your coordination,” Chel-Lin said innocently. “As a scientist, it is my duty to explore this unknown phenomena.”

  “Firstly, that’s not an unknown phenomenon. We’ve known since the dawn of man what happens when you tug on his mea-“

  Chel-Lin demonstrated that principle by giving his cock a gentle squeeze just as he attempted to unsolder a delicate connection pin. He tensed up, and just managed to maintain coordination with his tool to prevent the vital component from dropping deep into the bowels of the device. After checking the rivet was still secure, he turned to glare at his companion.

  “What?” Chel-Lin giggled.

  Damn this cocky little alien. All sense of decency had vanished from her the second she had gotten a hold of some human dick. Perhaps the best way to sort her out would be some firm xeno correction. Wait, what was he thinking? Of all people, Elias couldn’t fall to such depravity. Science was sacred! Not something to be fucked around, in a very literal sense. At least, that what he wished he could say; his little tête-à-tête had certainly involved some fucking in the same lab they were working in that moment.

  “Secondly…” Elias started, gently easing her tendril out of his pants. “We’re both physicists; leave the biology to Bernard.”

  “Wait, you want him to jerk you off?”

  “Wha- No!”

  Chel-Lin laughed once more, fully retracted her limb, and leaned over to peck him on the cheek. She returned to her proper position next to the seemingly incomprehensible machine before them. It appeared her focus had returned to the task at hand, the sudden desire to jerk him about passing. Elias was thankful, mostly for the sake of his shlong; he wasn’t sure how many more consecutive rounds the poor boy could handle in the Daksira gas oven after his performance the night before. Finally, scientific goal reestablished, Elias could focus on his work.

  Elias had no idea how the engineers who properly maintained the complex machine in front of him could stand to work through so many layers and circuits. He had heard that during the New Horizons Incident some six years prior, when the Cambiar first met humanity, that a team of engineers had managed to partially deactivated a pre-primed Goliath Class Schr?dinger-Drive in under an hour. Whilst he imagined they had experience, more tools, and a larger team to take it apart, it still felt unreal to imagine. For now, Elias simply chalked up that case as a fluke, instead of accepting his own lack of skill.

  It was the early afternoon by the time they had exposed the first raw connection point. Though there were dozens of slots on the white exterior that cables and wires fed into, they had uncovered a much more primitive looking, but vital part of the machine. During debugging and calibration, the wide slot was used by a Keeper or computer equivalent to tap directly into the central computer of the machine to diagnose any underlying issues, and to send direct messages to the Exhilium Shaft – the heart of the device. Of course, doing so without any authorisation was likely dangerous, and would probably end badly. As such, before they could even consider sending any messages to the core of cylindrical exotic matter that made up its centre, they would need to reduce the Shaft’s output to a minimum, reducing its range of QIS adjustment to a few mere atoms in radius.

  And, like some baleful eye winking at him, Elias still saw the blinking yellow LED embedded into the connection port. It had been visible a few layers above, through a mess of wires and syraline sheeting and now it sat, exposed. Something about it stirred a pot of unrest within the man, a primal fear from his ancestors. It spoke of unknown possibilities, a light that should definitely not be active. At the very least, Elias had never seen it referenced in any schematic before. Some sort of secret component that Keepers and maintenance crews knew of, but never openly discussed? It had never been mentioned in any interview with the mechanised men following their free will being returned. It was just a light, but the questions it held were unnerving.

  That, or Elias was just being paranoid.

  Just as he was beginning to weigh up whether banging a flying cloth alien with an apparent human fetish had broken his mind in some way, a soft knock at the door echoed out. Elias looked towards Chel-Lin. She nodded, and rose proudly to whoever was requesting entrance.

  “Come in,” Elias shouted.

  He had expected it to be Rannos or perhaps Lucian checking in on the pair, but it was instead a rather rough looking Kurt, sunglasses pressed as far into his eyes as possible and a rumbling groan coming from his mouth.

  “Ugh, please don’t yell,” the bodyguard murmured. “My head is about to explode.”

  Elias felt the need to reverse their roles for the moment, with the scientist acting as the protector for once, and dashed over to help the wide man to a stool to rest.

  “What happened?” Elias asked, as soft as possible.

  “Bernard thought it was a good idea to crack open his ‘special stash’ of drinks. Turns out New Paris shucka-wine makes for a horrible hangover. Urgh… I thought I would try to look over you guys from the camera room, since I think I heard you two come back here, but I passed out. Sorry. Did I miss anything?”

  “No!” Chel-Lin said as snappily as possible. Oh, great job little miss monkey fucker.

  Kurt, thankfully, didn’t seem to care about what he missed and instead tensed up at the alien’s translator being a touch too loud. He moaned and pressed his hands against his ears.

  “Sorry,” Chel-Lin whispered.

  “Guh… It’s fine, I can get EXCAL to report what happened if I need to.”

  “Uh, don’t worry about that Kurt, just some more boring science stuff,” Elias said. “Chel-Lin’s been working on her new QIS medium using this new, uh, Bubble Field Manipulator.”

  Kurt raised an eyebrow before responding. “Huh. Great… cool… whatever. EXCAL, do we have any meds for headaches nearby?”

  A soft ping rang out as EXCAL made himself known. “Hello Kurt! We sure do!” The beefcake groaned at the CAI’s enthusiasm. “Would you like me to bring you some? I have various spare drones at the moment, and have been advised to stay clear of Dr Warnick’s and Dr Dallas’ dorm rooms for the next… five hours.”

  The three in the lab shared a look of confusion, realisation and understanding.

  “Ah. You nerds. Must get all hot and bothered after getting some science done.” Kurt nodded, as if he had come to know some esoteric truth about the universe, instead of simply working out that two of his colleagues were probably just banging. Then, he scrunched up his face. “Wait are you two-“

  “Oh please, Kurt. You think I’d bang her? The alien?!” Elias rolled his eyes. Once Kurt looked away he mouthed a quick ‘sorry’ to Chel-Lin. The look in her eyes made it clear she would be paying that disrespect back tenfold. He could practically feel the tension in her gaze. If she had a mouth, she would likely be biting her lip.

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  That boded poorly for his dong.

  Announced by the sound of rubber soles and whirring servos, one of EXCAL’s humanoid drones walked in, a small plastic case under an arm and a tray with coffees held in the other.

  “Hello everyone!” he said with great enthusiasm and volume, drawing another moan from Kurt. “How did everyone sleep? I was attempting to get some good grinding in whilst everyone was away at the committee hearing. By shutting off all my auxiliary systems, I was able to get a 0.1% efficiency increase in my lobster training skill in SigilPlane. All I had to do was pass enough excess energy through my qubits to cause a “tick skip”. Now, it’s only 1026 hours and 58 minutes to reach the max level with peak efficiency, instead of 1028 hours! Isn’t that swell!”

  Wow, and Elias thought he was a nerd. Still, Kurt was very thankful for the panacea, and EXCAL’s coffees were well needed.

  “Oh. Well, in that case, before you get on with…. that do you mind helping Chel-Lin with something?” Elias asked.

  “Sure! As long as it doesn’t mess up my timing for the Hyper Incorporeal Field fight I’m about to do. I’m now rather unlucky on the Omega Icon of Unmaximus drop. Shame it’s a bit low at one in eight thousand, but it is what is it.”

  Elias wanted to ask what the hell the AI got out of such torture, but thought better of the idea. Instead, coffee warming his palm, he led the drone to the side of the S-Drive.

  “Right, so this is Chel-Lin’s BFM, ok?” Elias said with a wink.

  “But Elias, this is clearly an S-Drive?” EXCAL said, tilting his head.

  “Yeah, yeah, but work with me here. Pretend it’s an S-Drive and I’ll… shit, is there anything that requires more than one player in that game of yours?”

  “Oh Elias, I thought you’d never ask! There’s so much content I’m missing solo! Even with just a free burner account, there’s plenty you can help me with. There’s the PVP challenges, the trade quests where you annoyingly need another person just to defeat the Chumbala boss, when it is clear anyone alone could just kill it with the Holy Bla-“

  “EXCAL! Focus! We don’t need to talk about that right now. So… S-Drive… forget it’s here, ok?”

  “Can do! What did you need from me?”

  Elias instructed the drone in interfacing with the machine. After careful instructions not to touch anything relating to the activation of the core, he was able to get all the privileges for the codebase unlocked. Success! Now, Elias and Chel-Lin could simply hook up any computer and they would be able to use it as if a real Keeper or technician had unlocked it.

  Elias stepped back as the android did some minor work with Chel-Lin to safely remove the next section, a slumped Kurt approached Elias. With a slap to his shoulder and a slurp of his coffee, he leaned in.

  “Fancy stuff? Only, it doesn’t look quite like a Bubble Field Manipulator, right? A bit more like one of Madison’s spare S-Drives, hmm?” the bodyguard said with a thread of caution.

  “…Maybe,” Elias mumbled.

  “Look, Elias, I don’t care if it’s an S-Drive or not. Just promise me you aren’t going to do anything risky or dumb, ok?”

  “Of course. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you wouldn’t be able to recognise an S-Drive. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” Kurt said, waving aloofly. “Well, my head’s doing better, so why don’t you tell me what’s actually going on here?”

  “Me and Chel-Lin are testing something. A side project, if you would.”

  “You have time for that? Sounded like it took a lot of work to get everything ready for the first checkpoint.”

  Elias just smiled and shrugged.

  Kurt squinted his eyes at Elias before shaking his head, “Oh, who am I kidding, of course you’re able to do it. Jesus man, you really are something else. How do you have the energy to work out all those numbers and diagrams and everything else? Anyways, I’m not sure how many buyers you’ll get in Birkdale’s Gate for this sort of stuff. Mostly seems to be residential and entertainment stuff there for all the diplomats.”

  “It’s not for selling, my dear Howland. We’re trying to see if we can mix the benefits of the S-Drive with the Tylas Bubble Field Manipulator.”

  “That sounds… dangerous, Savage. The Tylas aren’t exactly friendly with us right now, and this feels like you’re playing with fire. You’re sure about this?”

  Elias looked on. Their work was just beginning, a seed ready to germinate into something magnificent. It would take time before any useful results would be made, but when they did it would be beautiful. That, and getting closer with Chel-Lin hadn’t been a bad side effect either.

  “Surer than anything in my life,” Elias declared. “I feel like this might be the reason I’ve worked so hard in the past - what it all meant in the end. If it weren’t for everything I tried and tested and experimented before, I would never have gotten here, right at this moment. And it just feels… right, you know?”

  “In that case, I can only wish you the best, because I have no fucking clue what any of that does.”

  “Well, if you actually want to learn about theoretical physics, you’d need to start much lower down the ladder of education. I’m not sure what bodyguard training entails as far as education goes, but for someone like you, Kurt, there’s a little brain stimulation activity you can try. What you do is get a bunch of wooden blocks and holes they can fit into.”

  The light smile that Kurt had grown over the conversation faded as he scowled at Elias with a click of his teeth. He could clearly tell where this was going.

  “Now Kurt, it should be pretty obvious what to do with the blocks, but for someone like you I think a hint is in order,” Elias continued. “So, if I had the square block, which shaped hole would it go into?”

  “Fuck you, Savage. Even if some kid came to Nucleus and they left you to look after it, god fucking forbid, you would probably just mess with it by shoving all the blocks in the square hole anyway.”

  “Yeah, that’s fair. Now, S-Drives?”

  “Please,” Kurt said, exasperated.

  “Alright, so pretty much, there’s a funky inner core that can play with matter and QIS Patterns. Difference between those two is that a QIS Pattern actually puts up resistance to moving about, unlike quarks and subquarks and everything else below.”

  “Uh, subquarks? Does it get smaller than quarks?”

  “Duh. Why do you think I got all my first constant named after me?”

  “Christ,” Kurt rubbed the bridge of his nose as he only just then came to the awareness of how awesome Elias was. Or maybe he was ust confused. It was sometimes hard to tell the difference when a person’s skull looked thick enough to resemble an actual gorilla’s. Maybe one of Kurt’s parents was related to King Kong, who knew.

  “So yeah,” Elias continued. “Inner shaft of super-duper special metal plays god with atoms, get dictated by a computer where to put them, and is managed by another computer to move everything correctly. That last part is where the Keeper comes in, or some artificial substitute if you want to risk it. They act as a binding anchor for the S-Drive to work off properly.”

  “And where does the BFM come in? Should I even know?”

  “Why not? You’re already an accomplice now. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?” Elias gave an opened mouthed smile as he waited for Kurt’s response. The bodyguard just gave a weak grunt of approval as he motioned for Elias to continue.

  “I’m hoping we can try and use the Bubble Field as some sort of QIS cushion to remove the need for any QIS stabilisation liquid at all. Maybe we can have it work without going through all the hell that needing a Keeper entails. At least, in theory. No clue if that would actually work. I’ll need to do a lot of testing with Chel-Lin, and maybe run some of the numbers past Madison. Bernard too, since he’s got a good eye for details in patterns, being involved in genetics and all that.”

  “I’ve gotta hand it to you, Elias,” Kurt said. “I’m pretty stunned.”

  “What? Didn’t think I could actually pull this sort of stuff off? Are you now cowed by the power of my impressive mind?” Elias only slightly exaggerated his ego. Just a tad.

  “No, I’m surprised you’ve actually made a friend or two here.”

  “Oh.”

  “Good job.” Kurt patted his back. Elias considered some rejoinder, but knew when to stop being an asshole, sometimes, and just let the moment pass. After a few minutes of the great human pastime of watching others working hard whilst doing nothing themselves, a thought hit Elias.

  “Wait, actually hold on a second, Kurt. Most people have no idea what an S-Drive looks like. How did you know?”

  “Ah, caught that did you? Guess I wasn’t being fair before either. I’ve been around, Elias. You forget that you’re not the first client I’ve had.” Kurt smiled for a second before it soured.

  “Some good, some bad I take it?”

  “Few good, most were shit. Not evil, per se, just dumb and rude.” Kurt sighed. “A few were rotten.”

  “And where do I rank so far?”

  “Pretty good.” He turned to look at Elias. “But maybe tilting a bit towards the crappy side of the scale after that little chase you gave me.”

  “Oh, come on. It was fun, right?” Elias said.

  Kurt’s gaze was steely, “I guess. I’ve had some real bad VIPs in my work. It was one of the better ones who showed me what an S-Drive looked like. Think he knew your uncle.”

  “Wait, my uncle? Uncle Samson? Did you meet him?”

  Elias swallowed. One more story about his uncle wouldn’t really add too much to the existing legend surrounding him – Elias already had hundreds of stories from others who knew him. And yet, the anticipation of more of Samson’s hijinks was enough to bring a smile to the scientist’s face.

  “Sadly, no,” Kurt said before cracking a knuckle. “But the guy I was looking after, some weirdo on business visit from Silver Domain, told me he worked with him. That VIP said he kept going on and on about some silly old books, and how he just loved the adventure in each one. Heh, he actually sounded like a fun guy. Pretty rare in the CCH to be honest. Unlike your dad. Uh, no offense.”

  “None taken. Take it from a primary source. Shame you never met my uncle. I think you might’ve liked him,” Elias said with a sigh. “What about the shit ones? You ever quit a job from them being just that bad?”

  Kurt reached into a pocket to smoke, only to realise he must’ve been wearing a different suit than his usual and pulled out nothing but lint. With a grunt he merely closed his eyes and leant back.

  “Just one. I hope to god you’re my last client for a while. Not sure if I can handle one of the rough ones any time soon.”

  Kurt turned to leave, apparently satisfied that the EXCAL and Chel-Lin were not planning on S-Jumping the entirety of Nucleus to another system anytime soon. Then, he quickly turned and looked Elias in the eye.

  “Oh, that reminds me - I’ve got some info about EXCAL. His development, that is. It’s got a big asterisk on it though - it’s tied to the worst client I ever had. Nasty shit. We’ll talk when our gamer friend is a bit less… present.”

  EXCAL excitedly chatted away about obscure game mechanics to a clearly bewildered Chel-Lin who nodded along. Left alone to survey the strange duo, Elias sipped his coffee. Green mist swirled above the skylight in the centre of the lab. As the skies of Kral’Thul rolled on by, the speed on the winds noticeably faster than when he first arrived, he considered the possibilities of what Kurt said.

  By the end of the Interspecies Galactic Symposium, Elias hoped his bodyguard would fully consider him one of his best clients.