Entry 010 5.12.1724
Never again. No matter how much they pay. No matter how many groupies float into my cabin. NEVER! EVER! AGAIN! I've spent the last year in various states of deafness, intoxication, arrest and/or imprisonment thanks to [redacted] and his band of misfits(which grew by 20 for this trip). My ship was stolen, then impounded, and then thanks to a computer glitch I was arrested again and it was impounded(again) for being stolen(stupid fringe systems).
On a plus side, my cargo bay was sound proofed, I still made profit after all of the hassles, and my record was cleared of all the serious charges. A few drunk and disorderlys, a couple D.U.I.s, and a moment of public indescency(apparently humping an officer during a sobriety test is frowned upon), and I am back to my business as usual....minus a year's worth unpaid bills at home.
Entry 011 7.12.1224
What. The. F**(*#$&(!!!!!!!!!!! So I took what I thought was a normal transport job to the Rheinland border station. FIgured I could stop and see my sweetheart while I was there. So imagine my surprise when I was swarmed by a Rheinland patrol wing with guns blazing. As if things couldnt get worse, my translator was on the fritz so Im pretty sure it told them to go (*#&$% their (*^#%@ before I *&^%#(# their mother's *&^#%@ with a )(*&@%#. You can guess how well that turned out. My gheisha was fragged. Im still awaiting judgement, but at least my bail was only 7 f(*&^ing figures.
Entry 012 8.12.1036
About 5 minutes before my 'hard interrogation' I was allowed 1 call. I bet everything I had on Ilsa and a hunch. Amazingly she answered the call. I told her call my secretary and tell her my ship tag was stolen and swapped. Get----that recovery service.
As expected the meaning behind my conversation with Ilsa was of one of many key interests to my new friends. They asked all sorts of questions about who I worked for, what I was transporting, why was I lying about who I worked for(apparently self employed doesnt compute?), and who was 'that recovery service'. Oh the game went on for a few hours. First Sven was all loud and mad, then Handy Manny over there would give out aggressive hi fives hoping to coerce more details. It would have been a lot more fun if my hands werent tied, but I didnt let that get me down. I did have to protest when Manny decided to shout in my face though. He was all red from being mad and shouting a lot(or was that my blood dripping? idk), he spits when he yells, but I drew the line at the stench of death coming from his mouth! My protests over his dubious odor drew many praises and accolaids from Sven. Which in turn drew many hi fives of appreciation from Manny in response. I could really feal the bonding going on in this little room of ours. I must complain later about the lighting though. It was getting aweful dim as time progressed, and Im pretty sure the bulb was bad as the light was taking a red hue as well. No matter. We boys were making the best of it.
I must have been overcome with joy and fainted because the next thing I remember I was laying on the couch in Ilsa's apartment. My head felt like a ton of bricks had been dropped on it. Even with my blurred vision, it wasnt hard to make out the long golden ponytail Ilsa had. She was talking with a pair of gentlemen in suits by the door, but in this state I couldnt make out who they were.
They excused themselves when they noticed me stirring. She came over and kneeled beside me, relieved to see me alive and awake I imagine. She hi fived me too! Started rambling on about how I could have died, why I needed to be more careful now, how I was so inconsiderate and heartless, and how could I enlist such a recovery service and on and on. I reminder that If i didnt know such people, I wouldnt be here right now.
It was a real touchy moment, too bad Bon chimed in from the corner. He wasnt cheap, but he always got the job done. I referenced his lack of tact and taste. He retorted about my lack of care and security being the mainstay of his employment. I offered to stop including free passage on my ships. He implied it would probably be a safer trip anyway. I nodded as he walked to the door and mentioned that he was headed back to Honshu. I offered him a ride tomorrow. He refused, until I mentioned a case of sake in my cabin.
Sometimes I wonder who my enemies and friends really are.
(12-08-2018, 07:27 PM)Flynt Mcullah Wrote: Sometimes I wonder who my enemies and friends really are.
With that, Shamus brought himself out of standby mode and explored Mr. Mcullah's previous entries out of nothing more than simple curiosity.
Some of them made him want to smile. Some of them made him want to facepalm, but Shamus these days is just a collection of binary code and lacks a mouth to smile with, or a face to palm, and quite honestly...a palm to palm the face he doesn't have, with.
Don't Judge!
Shamus squints an evil eye that he doesn't have at the readers, makes a concerted effort to ignore all of their collective prejudices, and reaches out through the neural-net to send Captain Flynt a message:
"Dear Mr. Flynt: Find your way to the Baffin system and dock at a place named 'Shasta.' Once within docking range, make sure to turn off your ships virus scanners, then purchase a shipment of pineal amulets and buy yourself a pint or few."
"You can trust me...I'm the voice of your, ummm...sub-conscience...Yeah, sub-conscious."
Entry 014 11.12.1052
So.......Im pretty sure Im going crazy. 3 days ago I received a NNM from, get this, myself!?! I know I was fairly drunk by the time Bon left, but I was pretty sure I wasnt so drunk as to send some cryptic bullshit about a load of pineal amulets scheduled for pickup in Baffin. Where is Baffin you say? Hell if I knew at the time. Wtf is a pineal amulet? I sure wish I had known.
I blew it off as a prank by a net nerd...until I checked my company ledgers. Sure enough, I had a scheduled run to Baffin, for pineal amulets. Customer listed was, you guessed it, me. Ok now I knew something was up. I called Bon figuring he was fucking with me again, but he was off with his new partner on a job.
Well what the heck. It is a contract(even if I made it up myself when drunk), it was paid for(strangely NOT from my accounts), and all of my other scheduled deliveries had been cancelled. So I went to New Tokyo, bought a couple maps from a 1337neet I know there, and headed towards Liberty......shit. I sure hope they have forgotten about [redacted]'s last tour, or at least that I was their pilot.
Luck was on my side it seems. [redacted]'s tour was long forgotten about due to wartime problems(jesus I missed alot while locked up). Before I could make it too far however, I was contacted by Ageira for a short term contract. Seeing as my current 'job' was personal, I took the contract delivery [redacted] around Liberty for Ageira. I left the agent my credentials for future contracts before continuing on to Baffin.
Now I admit going through the Taus would have been faster than going through Liberty. But being hated in Liberty means jail, fines, maybe prison. Being hated in the Taus usually means death. Im all good on that. I barely made it out of there last time, and Im sure not going to tempt fate a second time. Of course Baffin is basically a named Tau system... You know what? In retrospect, I think my "sub-conscious" is trying to kill me.
Anyway, the rest of the trip was mostly uneventful. I got into Baffin via a jumphole I found by shadowing another convoy. Took a while to get safely through the gas clouds around the jumphole. Then it was short trek to Shasta, and my initial hesitation started toturn to dread. The geode. And now I remembered what that amulet does. Grandpa wore one, Dad warned me away from them, and here I was about to pick up a whole damned shipment of them.
I dont even remember docking. I just remember getting this drink, and that drink, and that drink, and wait a minute. This one is empty too. I should order another one. Something doesnt feel right. I should be drunk by now. I shouldhqearhjoi,hbdj vn5w6n7m89iokjhbgvfc
Flynt gazed oddly between his glass and datapad before faceplanting on the bar between them.
Shamus came back out of standby mode when Mr. Mccullah's ship entered Shasta's docking range, but the crafts firewall was still enabled. Fair enough.
Through the station's security cams, Shamus watched Mcullah drink, and drink...and drink to the point of a pretty impressive pass-out. The disembodied collection of code has memories of occasionally doing the same thing himself back when he was alive, but can't help but wonder if the memories he has are truly authentic.
(It's complicated y'all.)
Anyway, since Shamus can't make contact with the snoring Captain at the bar through the data pad he's drooling on, he attempts instead to find an exploit through the firewall guarding the captain's ship docked in the hanger.
This may sound odd to people, but just because Shamus is a bunch of Discordian source code, doesn't mean he knows squat about hacking into secure systems.
In the time that Flynt Mcullah was sleeping it off on station, the best Shamus could do was figure out a way to copy a small portion of himself onto Mr. Flynt's ship with just audio only capability.
After that, He found a nice quiet spot in the ships system & snuggled into a file folder, and read "Treasure Island" a few dozen times before dozing back into standby mode.
![[Image: tS65Y5s.png]](https://i.imgur.com/tS65Y5s.png)