“Of all the people to attempt cloning from stored DNA and recorded early QIS data, why on earth did they choose Pitbull? I mean, seriously, I know Glass Tip already had a whole bunch of promotional material about bringing back the ‘celebrities of yore’ but come on! Not some important doctor or someone who changed life in a dramatic way, or hell, not even some average joe. No, goddamn Pitbull. If nothing else, at least it taught us a few things – cloned people produce a different QIS Pattern to the original, and that Pitbull knew how to say ‘dale’ really well. Good thing too; the clone was so brain damaged that ‘dale’ was the only word he could say in the end. Not much a difference from if he had come out fine, if you ask me. At least he didn’t turn out like a goreskin. Getting murdered by a roided up Pitbull would have been the worst way for anyone to go in history.” – Abene Rose, Top-Charts Reporter, 2231. Taken from ‘Heroes of the Past – Truth or Trash?’.

  Elias prayed he wasn’t too late to save a friend. Feet carrying as fast as he could, he climbed the staircase two, three, steps at a time. Quads burning, sweat pouring, he slammed into the rooftop door and out into the cold night. Where was he? Where was the bastard? He looked towards the edge, expecting to see Isaac, or some other assailant gripping Kurt by the neck, and maybe, just maybe, if he was quick enough, he could stop them.

  Except, all he saw was Kurt Howland, faithful bodyguard, sitting in a striped folding chair, sipping on a beer.

  “’Bout time you showed up,” Kurt said, tipping his glasses down. “I’ve been waiting for about… ten minutes?”

  It was ten minutes before when Elias had been told by EXCAL that Kurt had gone missing from the cameras, and thus was thrust into the action of finding his friend. Chel-Lin, trustworthy as ever, had last seen him near Madison’s lab, who sent him over to Rannos, who in turn sent him Bernard’s way. Frantic running about at its end, Elias realised the truth.

  “You… you… sent me on a wild goose chase?” Elias panted.

  “Yep. Y’know, it’s kinda funny. Almost feels a bit familiar to another chase in this very facility?”

  He tapped a thumb on his chin, the smuggest grin in the galaxy on his face. Oh. Oh no. Payback, at long last, had come to bite Elias on the ass.

  “That was… months ago man…” Elias, still winded, stumbled over to the spare seat next to him.

  “And that’s why this worked even better. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this? When I brought up the idea to the others, they were all for it. Apart from Lucian, didn’t even bother talking with the prick.”

  “Fair enough… But, really? We didn’t have some freaky teleporting ninja sneaking about when I first did this.”

  “Eh, call it interest on the little fright you first gave me. Besides, that bald nerd probably isn’t actually going to do anything – not against someone like you at least. You’re too much of an asshole to outright kill. Will a beer help make it up to you?” Kurt offered the bottle and Elias was not one to turn down a gift.

  “Beer always helps,” Elias cheered his bodyguard as he took the drink.

  Settling into the folding chair beside Kurt, he looked up at the twinkling stars all above him. He wasn’t exactly certain on the science behind the gas cloud that made up Kral’Thul and the surrounding asteroids within. During day, its pea green colour gave a hazy aspect to everything in the distance. As the star settled in behind a colossal flat asteroid that made up the gravity-defined ‘bottom’ of the cluster, its colours became those of an earth-twilight – mauves and oranges streaked through the heavens. And now, as night had come to rest, the stars became perfectly visible as the gas became invisible. Perhaps the gas diffracted the light of the nearby star based on its local intensity, but distant stars were left untouched; pinpricks of distant dreams peeking through a veil.

  Elias didn’t know it worked, and frankly didn’t care. It was night, the stars were out, and a cold beer was in his hands. Quietly sipping, he and Kurt enjoyed the silence for a while. It was left unsaid, but Elias was sure that the two of them had made some fun whilst the IGS was being prepared. For better or worse, neither were the same people from when they first arrived all those months before. In the past, Elias had never been one to keep in touch with those he worked with after their time together was done. Hell, he often felt a sense of annoyance at those who tried to reach out to him – in his mind, they had all been hanger-ons stuck in the past or opportunists who wanted to get closer to Kantor. Though it seemed Elias and Kurt’s paths may diverse in the distant future, he didn’t want to lose contact with the man. Different as they were, Elias found him a fun man to chat with.

  “So, what’s next?” Elias eventually asked, setting his bottle on the floor.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Next?” Kurt raised a brow.

  “After the Symposium. What’s next for Mr Howland?”

  “Hmm. Good question. You first.”

  “You make me run all the way up here, and now I have to give away my secret plans first? Fine. If all goes well, and the Tylas don’t think of us any worse than before, then maybe I’ll see if I can try and get GaltCorp to set something permanent here. An orbital research station or university maybe. I don’t quite feel like hopping from station to station anymore.”

  “Oh? Is it because Chel-Lin’s here?”

  “W-what?” Elias stammered. “No, of course not. Well, I mean, she is bright – no doubt – and it would be nice to have someone on my level to have close by.”

  “Sure, sure. Never thought I’d hear you say she’s up to your standards considering how your first meeting went.”

  Ugh, that was an embarrassing memory to look back on. “Uh huh. Strange how things go sometimes. Now, your turn. What’s the plan, Stan?”

  Kurt looked up into the shadowy swathes about them. He gave a faint smile. “I’m getting out of being a GaltCorp bodyguard.”

  “Whoa, I… don’t know what to say. I wasn’t that bad, was I?”

  “Heh, not because of you Elias. It’s just the business. I can’t say for certain exactly what I want, but I know what I can’t do anymore. I can’t keep helping out some of the scum back on Titanlock or wherever. If I want to make the most of my skills, it’ll be for people like you – people who are going to help the future, not kill it.”

  “It’s bound to be a big change. But I think if you like the idea, then you should go for it. Say, you never did tell me and since you’re getting out of protecting the scum of the CCH – who was the worst person you ever had to protect?”

  Kurt took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. “Right. It was from a few years back, when I was part of a big team. Me and like twenty other guys were looking after one dude – Samuel Penketh. Real scummy bastard. He was a scientist, bit like you, but he was into all that AI shit. Ran across his name when looking into EXCAL’s stuff, so think he was involved there. Anyways, I was on the outer part of the team, not directly interacting with him, but scouting out locations and watching perimeters.”

  “Maybe that was for the best; I’ve seen some of the people my father works with, and there’s only so much time you can spend with them in person before you start feeling dirty – direct contact or otherwise.”

  “Right,” Kurt took a sip from his bottle. “So, one night he’s in a mood and buys out an entire nightclub for a party. He was that level of rich, where money just becomes some intangible, a real bottomless well. I’m guarding a back door, nothing too crazy, but then things go quiet. One of the others, a guy I liked, drags this girl over to me. She’s a stripper, but she ain’t dancing. No, was out of it, foaming at the mouth. Get the order from Penketh to ‘dispose of her’. Poor girl wasn’t dead, but based on whatever the hell she was ODing on, she didn’t have much longer left.”

  An awful idea hit Elias in the gut. “Kurt… did you…?”

  The heavy-set man took a deep breath, gaze cast forwards. “No. I’ve done some things I hated in my job – shooting guys that I’d much rather let take a potshot at my client, or having to drag some drunken rich prick halfway across Titanlock on a whim, but never anything like that. But I know what they meant by ‘dispose’. I could’ve let her drift away, just a sad accident, and cover it up but I couldn’t let that happen. I took her to a doc I knew, and bailed on my contract that night.”

  “Jesus that’s…”

  “Bad? Believe me, based on what I heard from the others, that’s nothing. And that’s why I can’t even stand to go back there. It made me feel sick when I saw the return tickets I got sent, for after the IGS.”

  “I guess there’s other options out there. I imagine you wouldn’t fare much better in the Doctrine or their Separatists. How about the Out-Han, or one of the Cambiar states? Hell, after all this, the Tylas might be open to some protection.”

  “You think any of them need a guy like me?” Kurt scoffed. “If someone was gonna off a Tylas, they’d probably be borged out of their mind; way beyond my pay grade.”

  “Guess so. Still, you have choice if you’re thinking that humanity can be a bit rotten at times.”

  “Nah, it’s not that humanity is rotten, just some people. Or, more like… the people that let the scum rise to the top, those that look the other way, are the ones who are really responsible. I don’t want to be that sort of guy anymore. So, Elias, thank you for teaching me not to give a blind eye to that anymore, even if it takes running into a burning research centre with nothing but hopes and dreams.”

  “I’ll, uh, take that in a good way. Just try to mix the crazy ideas with the good ones, ok? I don’t want to see you get yourself killed.”

  “Fair enough. How about we toast to something like… virtuous stupidity?”

  “If there’s anything I’d always toast to, it would be that. Cheers.”

  Elias and Kurt tapped their beers together. Letting the night settle in, there was one last question Kurt apparently needed to ask.

  “Elias?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Since everyone will be at the IGS, it’s going to be a lot of eyes on us, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “In that case, if you’ve been thinking about revealing my music at the perfect time, I actually will kill you, ok?”

  “Whaaaat? No, ever!” Elias said with all the sincerity of an insurance dealer.

  Damnit! Elias had been planning that! Ah well, some good plans weren’t meant to be. However, that just meant he needed to find a better time for it.

  “Seriously, don’t worry,” Elias whispered. “You’re secret’s safe with me. But if you ever get the desperate urge to sing some karaoke with someone you trust not to judge you, and believe me, this is crazy, but maybe you should…”

  Kurt looked his way, confused. Elias cleared his throat, sneakily pulled his comm-device out and put on his best singing voice.

  “? Call me maybe? ?” both Elias and some proto-wave popstar sang in sync. “? It’s hard to look right at you bab-“

  “Shit, Elias! You shut that up right now, EXCAL could be listening!”

  Elias laughed as he tried playing some music from a playlist he had titled ‘Kurt Bangers’ aloud, the bodyguard trying to wrestle the comm-device away all the while.

  In the future, he knew he would miss moments like this. But in the present, Elias laughed.