All That Glitters Ch. 15

"Raymond, are you going to make her your friend, or do we have to take her off your hands?" Annette asked, giving him a significant look. The ladies all laughed, and Lynne turned in time to see Raymond blushing, though in the pulsing blacklight it was hard to make out that he was.

The ladies quickly included Lynne in their conversations, though she was often left behind when it began to get technical. When Annette and Liea started talking finances, Lynne was easily able to keep up, and the two ladies recognized it.

Lynn turned her chair so she could lean against the wall and be able to look down both tables to see all those seated around them. That also gave her a view to the bar, not far away.

As they were talking, Lynne noticed something odd. Lynne, being a beautiful and therefore much sought after woman, was well aware of the kinds of things men got up to with pretty women in a club. It had been drilled into her time and again, that odd usually meant 'keep an eye out'.

She saw two men, who caused the hackles on the back of her neck to rise, but she could not figure out why. Watching them without appearing to watch them, she saw them pull small tubes out of their pockets and put something into the palms of their hands. They discarded the tubes into the trash.

The men pretended to dance, but their dancing was slightly off. As they approached the tables, Lynne could see that they were moving toward Fiona Marsh and her aide. The men appeared to be slightly inebriated, but Lynne could tell this was an act. She still could not figure out what had triggered her initial alarm, which was now growing steadily, then one of the men reach out toward Fiona and it all clicked.

Blacklight caused things to fluoresce. Usually white coloured or light coloured clothing. But other things could fluoresce under blacklight, and many women used this knowledge to give themselves an edge in the eternal game of seeking a sexual partner. Certain kinds of lipstick bloomed under black light.

And women knew another odd trick of blacklight. Petroleum jelly fluoresced brilliantly white under the pulsing lights, but so did other things that formed a barrier on skin. Women used this knowledge to selectively 'flash' certain parts of their bodies while under blacklight, going braless with a little special rouge on their nipples, made them pop under their blouses in the blacklight, attractive beacons in the night.

She was looking at the men's hands, and they were fluorescing brilliantly, but they had put something on their hands and one of them was reaching toward a new friend.

Without hesitation, without thought for herself, Lynne acted. She picked up the heavy and now empty tumbler for her drink and hurled it as hard as she could at the face of the man reaching toward Fiona.

The tumbler hit him hard in the forehead, making an audible thump on impact and causing him to stumble backwards and drop to one knee. Instinctively, he reached up with his hand to hold his head where it had been hit, then he slowly pulled the hand from his forehead and a look of pure horror crossed his face.

Lynne put two and two together and called out...

"Poison! They have poison on their hands! Don't let them touch you!" she screamed as loud as she could, pointing at the man she had just thrown a tumbler at and his partner.

Analisa was on her feet quickly and she hit the downed man with a foot to the opposite side of his head from where he had been hit by the tumbler. He fell unconscious to the floor. The other man spread his arms and made some swirling motions with his hands that both Analisa and Kim ignored.

Analisa stomped her foot and took a half-step forward, the man stepped back right into a roundhouse kick to the back of the head from Kim. He hit the floor and didn't move. In seconds there were several people around the two would be assassins.

Someone used a medical scanner on their hands. "Their hands are protected with Biofilm," he told his boss. "I cannot detect a poison," he finished.

Biofilm was applied from a tube, spread over whatever part of the body needed protecting. It was often used to place a protective barrier over scrapes and was also applied to people's hands to keep them dry or free of oil or dirt. It dried into a flexible covering that offered effective protection against the environment, most toxins, petroleum by-products, and corrosive liquids. Once the task was finished, the Biofilm could be peeled away like a pair of gloves. Careful management meant you never touched the outside of the film to exposed skin.

"Bag their hands," Analisa ordered her team. "Don't touch them when you do."

"Lynne, not that I doubt you, but could you tell me what set you off?" Analisa asked.

"Their hands were glowing under blacklight, like lipstick or petroleum jelly. It just set my date rape alarm going. I watched them without looking at them. They took tubes out of their pants and put something on their hands, then approached Fiona, reaching out to touch her. They put the tubes in the trash over there," she told them pointing to the receptacle.

"You guys are new friends, and something wasn't right, so I threw my glass at him when he reached for Fiona. Then he reached up to hold his injured head and panicked after he pulled his hand away, that put the final piece together for me," she finished.

The man she hit with the drink glass began to come around. They sat him up and asked him what he had planned. Still being groggy from two hits to the head, he told them the truth.

He and his partner were attempting to make good on C150,000 contracts on Fiona Marsh and her Aide, Henadi Noor. The two men had been surprised when they were told that Fiona and her aide were now on Liramor Prime. They followed and finally got the chance to do something here in the club. They were going to net C300,000 for just a little bit of effort.

They knew they would never be allowed to bring weapons into the club, so they had decided to use poison.

"Who put out the contract" Analisa asked.

"Dark Web contract number," he told her.

"We'll get you to a hospital," Analisa told him.

"It doesn't matter," he said, matter-of-factly. "It's Tilanate."

Tilanate was a virtually undetectable contact poison that was fatal within half an hour after administration. Once the poison was in the body, death was almost inevitable. Even a small amount was deadly.

The victim would not notice anything until the last five minutes of their life, then there would be a sudden cascade failure of the autonomous nerve system, which ran the heart, lungs, and most of the organs. Death was from simultaneous multiple system failures and it was not pretty.

The poison had been a favorite of CP assassins during the Union War. So much so that almost all hospitals kept an antidote on hand. But that was no longer the case now as the antidote was expensive, and the war was long ended.

All they could do was make the assassin's last moments as comfortable as possible, something the poison would not allow.

"You said you're currently working as an EA?" Lissette asked. Lynn nodded in confirmation.

"Funny thing, Raymond needs an EA," she said with a knowing smile.

Analisa Talbot thought about that for a moment. She would have to do a thorough screening, but she liked the way that Lynne went with her gut. As she had been retained by a senior lawyer for several months as an EA, Raymond probably couldn't do much better. CPA, MBA, and experience in two different lawyers' offices working closely with both lawyers. Unique skillsets at work there.

VSC HQ, Capital City, Liramor Prime, Liramor System

Jean Scimate was the leader of the computer security/crime division of the Veteran's Security Company. Once he was informed of the hit contract, he assigned his best person to it.

Luc Branchette was a recent find who was a savant with computers. Jean had years of experience handling computers, but Luc made him look like a comparative novice. He let Luc know what they were looking for and stood back to watch. Six monitors had been set up for the search and everyone in the office watched as Luc began to work.

The first step was to enter the Dark Web without leaving a trace, no sense bringing mischief back to the offices of VSC if someone somehow discovered that they were looking through the dark side. The Dark Web was rife with killer packets and small search and detect cookies and programs designed find and trace unwanted people on this side of the web. The old joke of 'Come to the Dark Web, we have cookies' has levels of meanings to those in the know.

Luc was an experienced hand at this and skillfully slipped into the web. He then started browsing for the criminal contract page, never asking for a specific one. When he found things of interest to VSC or the IPPF, he flagged it and sent it off to one of the monitors for others to work with.

Ten minutes after he entered the web, Luc found what he was looking for, the contract page for criminal hiring. Looking through it carefully, he found the notification on the hit contract of one Fiona Marsh and one Henadi Noor.

There were a number of other contracts that would prove of interest to the IPPF and he also flagged those for other team members to follow.

Luc began to carefully sniff around the tail end of the contracts window, seeking a source script. He found it and followed it back through the Dark Web to its entrance point.

Without leaving the Dark Web, he carefully 'popped' up over the Dark side to the LPWW, to see what he could. He easily found a string of leads going to several comps that were obvious bots. He placed a tag on each and dived back into the Dark Web, looking for the telltales on those tags, finding them easily.

Luc then stripped information on those tags and fed that info to another monitor. He now had four of the six monitors feeding information from criminal computer activity to sub-groups of the computer team.

Despite having seen him do this before, Jean Scimate was impressed. What Luc had done in less than half an hour, his people would have taken hours, if not days to duplicate.

Following back from the tags, Luc found several comps that were obviously meant to be cut-outs, sacrificial comps that would lead police to stop and investigate. Luc wasn't fooled and followed the trail back even further from those, nonetheless he tagged the cut-outs for the VSC teams, who would send the tags to the police.

Things were beginning to get tricky, as the cut-outs were receiving instructions from all over Liramor Prime. Luc carefully followed each lead back, tagging them on the open web and searching for the corresponding tag on the dark side.

It took him more than two hours, but he finally brought his search down to a single server unit which seemed to be initiating many of the contracts, including the two they were researching.

The server was in a non-descript business on the back side of the world from Capital City. Luc managed to get a screen shot of several active bank account numbers related to the business.

Jean Scimate sent those numbers to the IPPF, not really expecting anything but VSC got back far more than they bargained for.

IPPF HQ, Liramor Prime, Liramor System

Maria Sanger had just been appraised of the active hit contract on Fiona Marsh and her aide when her chief investigator entered the office.

"We just got a notification from VSC vis-à-vis the recent attempt on Fiona Marsh's life," Phillip began. "VSC has some really high-powered comp specialists who managed to scan the Dark Web and trace the source of the contract back to a single point."

"Gods, Phillip, I've only just been informed of the attack. We've got one dead assassin, apparently dead by his own hand - literally - an attempted murder scene at a public night club, four VVIP's involved, one of them the apparent target, and you're telling me that VSC is already providing the potential source?" Maria asked incredulously.

"That's not all," Phillip continued, "they gave us dozens of cut-outs, all middle-level crooks meant to be given up to protect the upper echelon figures, and a dozen active bank accounts attached to several Dark Web contracts, including against two members of the IPPF on Liramor Prime!

"Sgt. Spence informed me that her team would have taken days, if not weeks to back-track this source, and would have probably stumbled off the trail on any one of the cut-outs. She says that if we hit this place, to bring the VSC specialists with us.

"But that's not the kicker. One of those accounts is the same one from the Embassy of Anuura, that was used to pay for the recent sabotage attempt on the Liramor-Terra Commercial Line. We've potentially got a link between different active criminal investigations, and potentially other ongoing criminal contracts to investigate," Phillip told his boss.

"It's a server?" Sanger asked.

"Yes, boss. Which means that we could be doing the kind of search that took them into that server all over again to find out who is controlling it. I agree with Spence, if we hit this place, we should do it with that comp team as an asset.

"VSC has indicated that it will monitor that server for the next two days to capture whatever activity that occurs on the server. They hope to get a link back to the various other sources of contracts on the web, and possibly to whomever is controlling the server. If they are found out, it will give the appearance that IPPF is not involved in the search. So far, what they have discovered is a gold mine for us," Phillip stated.

Malihan Hospital, Green's World, Harn System, Twenty Light Years from Terra

Sean's legs had reached a point where they could start to support his weight, so he had been placed 'between the pipes' as he was want to say, and made to walk back and forth along a ten meter stretch of support pipes to help him to coordinate his walking movements, strengthen his legs, and regain the ability to bear his weight while walking. Then they would work on balance and conditioning.

Sean was quickly getting to the point where using the pipes was constraining him. He would shortly graduate to using a walker to allow him to go on extended walks. He was actually looking forward to lurching across the campus.

While he was happy with his progress, he was less happy with losing a friend. Heyya had finished her internship and been made a full doctor. She would be leaving soon to return to Liramor-23.

Tonight, the friends would all get together and go out for a night at the club. Sean would be allowed to go, though he would be in his anti-grav chair.

Malihan's Dive, Green's World, Harn System

The four friends, plus people they knew from the hospital, were all in a club near the hospital that often catered to hospital parties. Malihan's Dive, or just The Dive, as patrons often called it, was a large, multi-purpose club that saw duty as a restaurant, dance venue, meeting hall, a center for wakes for those who had passed, and as party central to the medical staff at Malihan Hospital. More than a few birthdays and farewell parties had been conducted at The Dive, and now it was Heyya's turn to say good-bye.

Heyya was looking forward to returning to Liramor-23 as a doctor, but sad that she would be losing the friends she made while working here. For her and especially the three intimate friends she would be leaving behind, it was a bittersweet moment.

Sean had one too many drinks and was trying to dance while holding onto the back of his anti-grav chair, to the cheers of the many friends who had come to Heyya's going away party. He would lurch a half-dozen steps before his legs lost the ability to keep him upright and people would rush in to catch him as he tumbled to the floor. Once or twice, he actually hit the floor, much to the laughter of all.

But Sean, and Ayesha, and Anaya were no longer laughing as the night drew to a close. The four friends hugged each other tightly, well aware that when the weekend was over, so would their time together be. Other's recognized what was happening and the group hug grew and grew. The four were buried inside a hug of some thirty bodies, all of them crying and giving the friends, especially Heyya, their undying love and support.

Most farewell parties were soon forgotten, but this one would be remembered by hospital staff for a long time.

Hotel Eclipsa, Liramor Prime, Liramor System

Lynne woke up tucked into the very naked Raymond Clark, but that was alright as she too was naked. Her thoughts drifted back to the night before. Raymond sure knew how to keep a woman happy!

Lynne ran her hand over Raymond's body. He was muscular, but more in the form of a runner or swimmer. The muscles were well defined and very strong but not bulky like many bodybuilders. She liked the look, and the feel of them, as she stroked his body with her hands.

Her fingers slid over the Black Lightning tattoo on his chest. Knowing the story of those who had gone in and those who had come back from Planet Emporium, she wondered at what he had to endure in order to have received this tattoo.

Her fingers traced several scars, some of which might have been very close to being fatal, but he had survived them. One thing was for certain, the efforts of the Lightening on Emporium had shortened the war considerably, the survivors had earned those tattoos the hard way.

Raymond's eyes opened and he gave Lynne a soft smile. He captured her mouth in another of those amazing kisses that, quite frankly, she really couldn't get enough of.

"Good morning," she said after the kiss ended.

"Nice way to wake up," he said then giggled.

"What?" she asked.

"It seems to be a running theme in my life, the nice way to wake up," he admitted.

She was trailing her hand over his hip and slid it inwards until she found his morning wood. She giggled as a thought crossed her mind.

"What?" he asked, as she gently pumped his hardon.

"The first time I saw you, I was saying to myself, you are very tall but, I admitted to myself that all of us are equal in the horizontal position," she told him with a grin. "I was wrong. There are few that are your equal," she quipped.

"Keep thinking like that," Raymond said as he rolled her onto her back and leant down to find her left nipple with his mouth.

Lynne murmured softly as he suckled on her tit. Like his kisses, he knew how to suckle a breast. Not too insistent, not too hard of a suction, varying the effects of lips, tongue, and teeth to keep her guessing, keep her on edge.

He would use his lips to kiss around the outside of her breast, then use his tongue to take long strokes from top to bottom and vice-versa. Sometimes he would ignore the nipple for ages, then place his lips around the soft protrusion. Other times he would swoop right in pulling gently with his teeth or sucking as much of her breast as he could into his mouth.

And his hands were never idle, either playing with her other breast, or moving down to stroke between her legs. He would tickle the tiny bit of fuzz she left on her mons or slide a finger through the slipperiness of her labia.

Raymond teased her for several minutes until she pushed him back and went down to use her mouth on him. She liked the fact that he manscaped down there, getting hair in her teeth was not always pleasant.

She worked her tongue and lips over his large balls, gently lathering them up. She moved her tongue up and down the length of him, causing him to purr in appreciation.

She found the crown of his cock and slid her tongue around it, finally encasing it with her mouth. She took a breath and slid down the length of it feeling, more than hearing, his groan.