A young man in an orange and white coat stood near the causeway into the docking platform for Barrier Gate Station C. He leaned against a clean section of the otherwise filthy bulkhead. His arms were crossed with his head leaning forwards. The hood from his hoodie was pulled up while the brim of an old baseball cap stuck out from the front of the hood covering the remainder of his face. Across his mouth was what appeared to be some kind of a respirator to aid with airflow. What little skin was visible from his face was around his bright almond eyes. Without looking too closely, he could be mistaken for a Hacker...or someone from one of the Hispanic nations.
As time went on, the young man began to fervently tap his foot more and more anxiously. Did he figure it out? Was he being stood up? What the hell was going on?
"I knew I should have put a tracker on that asshole." he murmured to himself as he waited.
From a distance Brad finally could be seen making his way slowly down the hallway. Carrying what appeared to be two hotdogs, one in each hand. As he finally drew close to the figure leaning against the wall he held out one of the two. "I'm told these approximate the flavor of meat, if not the texture" He grinned while taking a bite of the other "So tell me mademoiselle, did you meet with the contact?" He took another large bite and continued thickly though the bread and mystery meat "I probably should have warned you she's a little handsy"
The man pinched the bridge of his nose beneath the brim of his hat.
"Does it look like I'm here to eat?" he asked with a tinge of anger in his voice before sighing. Collecting himself, he continued. "I went to your 'contact'. She clued me into this."
Zeke handed an invoice to Brad.
"This is an invoice from some Junkers independent of the Congress. It shows them requesting a tow from Omicron Beta to Omicron Delta for a massive amount of repairs to a ship called the 'Dreamscape'; dad's pride and joy and, if I'm not mistaken, yours as well. I contacted Livadia Shipyards over a secure channel pretending to be a intern for the SLRC. They wouldn't give me any information without the Director's clearance to discuss it...but being that the Director is missing, that leaves us with little recourse except to maybe go there in person to discuss it or the Assistant Director--that would be you--contacting them to discuss."
He smiled behind his respirator, the smile failing to reach his eyes. "So what do you say we make a long distance call?"
Brad finally emerged from a communication rental booth, he was quite red in the face as if he had just spent a considerable amount of time shouting. "Never have I needed two separate interpreters, how on earth can they type so succinctly on an invoice and not even speak passable English." He handed a print out for Zeke to view. "Livadia was a dead end of course, once the manifest was paid the entire job and its specs were dumped from their server." Brad produced another printout this one rolled into a tube. "The Junkers were a wee bit more helpful. To a point." Brad unfurled the paper, UNPAID stamped across the top. "There isn't a breakdown of actual work performed, but judging from the bill she must have plowed into something substantial, they still have the ship apparently, looking for payment" Brad shook his head at this point "Not that I have those kinds of credits out of pocket right now." Brad stroked his beard thoughtfully for a few moments. "At this point I doubt we'll be able to track down the Dreamscape on our own, but knowing it was damaged in Beta is certainly a start. Any ideas as to what's there, I don't think I, or anyone in Starlight has ever made a dedicated review of the system."
Directors Office, Ikarus Station, Tau 23 Two Days Later
Brad pinched the bridge of his nose. The had been in the office for almost 6 hours by this point. On top of the two day flight out. With only catnaps in-between. "Look, we've literally gone though everything that's left." he gestured to the office. "Whatever may have been here has already twice been sold, scrubbed, burned, downloaded, and wiped again." Brad crossed the room and leaned idlily against a bulkhead, slowly surveying the room, before shaking his head. "I'm honestly at a loss of where to go from here."
"You said this...what was it called? 'Dreamscape' was currently in the hands of these Junkers, yeah? Why don't we see if we can locate where they have the ship stashed. Back to basics as it were. Best case scenario is we can use that as a starting point for where ever my father went afterwards. We follow his path and see where it leads us."
He paused, thinking to himself for a brief moment.
"If nothing else, it could confirm that around the last time I spoke with him at Barrier Gate is when the real him went missing, and this...imposter took his place. Where does it say the ship is stored> If they haven't already stripped it for parts, that is."
Brad shuffled a few of the data pads on the desk before pulling up a rather battered looking one. "Ugh, the Sigmas." he tapped a few times on the pad, before looking back up. "Freeport 8, the little black sheep of the family." he scratched thoughtfully at his beard. "Junkers are a bit of an odd breed within Liberty and Bretionia, it takes a special...kind of person to be a scrapper in Rhineland. I hear their regulations manual exceeded a hundred thousand words in the latest revision." Brad paused for a moment and tapped at the battered pad again. "I'm afraid we'll likely need to visit 8 in person. I haven't actually been there before. Regulations made travel difficult, and oddly now that I think about it, at the time anyways, there were no sustained Baxter objects within Rhineland proper space." Brad grimaced slightly. "A bit off topic, sorry"