The Procurers

The Procurers - Part 1

By Pfantazm

1.1 - THE ZYMOBIUS FILE

Evan gazed into the eyes of the man whose bed he was on. They were a bright, shiny gold, and the mood tint showed that he was getting close.

Evan bounced his ass up and down on his trick's cock, letting it pierce upwards into him. He grabbed his own hard dick in an iron grip and pumped it, root to tip, root to tip. It wouldn't be long now.

The golden-eyed man pressed his thumbs into Evan's flesh around his nipples. Evan groaned and his head bowed. He sped up slightly (he couldn't go too much faster, though he wanted to) and took his hand off his cock to reach around his partner's arm and give him a little tit action of his own. If Evan worked that fuckstick into his ass just right, he wouldn't need his hand.

Evan let his eyes roam over the body beneath him as nature took its course. The guy had assured him that he was all-natural, and Evan believed him. The boy was pretty, but nothing you couldn't buy genetics had given him without human help. It turned Evan on knowing (or at least thinking) the boy fucking him was real.

His hair was prepared so that it looked like it smoldered like fire: black at the roots and red shading to bright yellow at the tips. His perfect teeth were gritted behind full lips, and tiny beads of sweat glistened in the smoggy daylight from the half-drawn shades. He'd caught Evan's eye as he was leaving the athletic complex and Evan was going in. He was only there to talk to someone, not to exercise, but the Fates had decided Evan was to get a workout after all. When they returned to his nameless pick- up's apartment, he'd stripped off his clothes (which hadn't been many) and showered. He'd obviously done so while at the gym, but this time it was for show, just for Evan.

As he turned under the spray, Evan got to see what the boy had been doing for himself. He was into his own body, an athlete in the purest sense, and he shunned meds and pads in getting himself built up. To a connoisseur like Evan, it showed.

When he'd decided Evan had seen enough, he'd pulled Evan into the shower with him, still dressed in street clothes, and started making out with him. One thing led to another, and, after a quick detour past the mini- laundry, Evan found himself with this darling man's prick all the way up his ass.

And now that man's face turned from one wincing in effort to one slack with euphoria as hot spunk splashed out of his manhood. In a flash, Evan had let go of the nipple he was fondling and jacked his own cock fast. He'd worked hard for this orgasm, and he was going to enjoy it. Evan felt his lover's balls empty into him, and he rode the thought to climax. He'd shot a lot, and Evan made to catch up. He spurted again and again up his top's chest and onto his face, and he opened wide to catch what he could on his tongue.

Evan leaned down, still joined at the hips, as it were, to taste the juice on the other man's tongue, and to taste him as well. He chuckled as their tongues played in each other's mouths. "You're a real cumhound, ain'cha?" he asked Evan.

"Can't get enough," he purred back.

They engaged in an acceptable amount of post-coital fooling around before Evan declared that he should get going. He still had someone to meet at the athletic complex. Evan slipped into his bikinis, and then his torn coveralls. Once the pockets were where he could find them, he pulled his ID agent out and pointed it at the one belonging to the other guy, who was still lying in the bed. "My contact info," he said, pushing the Transfer button. "Give me a call sometime."

"Yeah-huh," was the reply.

`I doubt it,' Evan translated. Oh, well. His loss, whatever his name is. "See y'around."

As he figured his way back to where he was parked, Evan again tried to figure out why so many guys did that, practice the freighter-watcher approach to sex. I've seen that one, check it off, and if I go looking for that one again, I'll never get the whole fleet.

He wasn't looking for anything permanent, and he made it clear to anyone who got romantic ideas in their heads about him. On the other hand, when you have a good time with someone, like he'd just done with Unknown back there, why wouldn't you want to go back to play with him again?

Evan had accumulated a long list of guys who felt the way he did, and occasionally when he could afford a night out of fun, he'd call the rounds and see who wanted to get together. They all knew the situation, hell, they played the same way themselves, and their address lists consisted of mostly the same names. Maybe he should just invite them all over one night and watch what happened. Evan was grinning wickedly when he found the door to the garage.

He looked around, wishing he'd remembered to log which quadrant his bike was in. He wandered until he ran across it again.

It was a nice arrangement he and the others had, he thought as he looked for his ride. You're pretty sure you're going to get a good fuck, or you wouldn't have the guy's id in your list, and you cut down on the chances something nasty will get introduced into the group, little flings like today's aside. The way that beautiful boy took care of himself, he was sure he wouldn't let himself catch anything inconvenient and leave it in his system. There hadn't been a plague on Halvaga III in decades that couldn't be cured. And Evan made sure his own health was kept up-to-date.

He spotted his red airbike off to the side, and he strode over to it. Still there, nothing stripped from it, and no one had come along and hacked an obscene graphic into the side. Bonus. Evan had spent a long time programming the skin on his bike just right, and nothing pissed him off more than having to erase some asshole's idea of fine art from it.

He swung a leg over it and started the drive. The airbike lifted off the ground, and Evan coasted away toward the exit. He took the transition to the gravity field in the road with practiced ease and headed back to the gym.

He went a fair clip over the speed limit. He'd be a good hour or so late by the time he caught up with OxygenJim, assuming he'd decided to hang around that long. He dodged over and between the other cars, surfing over the fields expertly. It was kinda dangerous, and he logged a couple of nominations for demerits on his license on the way from various outraged drivers, but his record was clean enough he could afford it, and he never touched anybody.

The smoggy air whooshed through Evan's short hair. Some bikers used helmets, but on the elevated streets in this city, there was no point. This was literally the open road: no physical surface, just four long, flat, invisible anti-grav fields to hold the cars up. One long square tube maintained at intervals, allowing you see the wonderful, run-down, grey, decrepit scenery around you. The buildings in this hole were older than Damascus, and they were falling apart from acid pollution. Somewhere, a few kilometres below you, you could be convinced there was a planet down there somwehere, and if you fell off the road accidentally (no documented cases this century), no helmet would save you on impact, even if you only nailed yourself into the side of one of the buildings instead of the ground.

Eighty percent of Halvaga III was urbanized. (No one wanted to develop the poles.) The place was oppressive in its population. There were people everywhere. Humanity on the whole was coming up on a hundred billion members, not even counting the Pictavian refugees. Humans were just not equipped to deal with numbers like that. Even the five billion on this small planet were too many to contemplate. If you met an inhabitant of Hell-vaga a second, you might just live long enough to shake hands with them all. By God, how he wanted off this rock. That's why he made sure he kept his health up, even when he didn't quite have the credits to spare for it: if the opportunity to leave ever came, he didn't want a medical restriction to fuck it up for him. And with any luck, he had a deal cooking that would do just that, and it was even legal besides.

He found a space for his bike and dashed into the complex, looking for Jim. He asked the registration computer if he was still there. After it verified that Evan was on Jim's contact list, it informed him that he logged out less than a minute ago. Evan turned and ran.

They finally caught up to each other at the entryway to the garage.

"What kept you, E-male? I was waiting for you over an hour. Fortunately, I found something to amuse myself with. Evan, meet Free."

Evan shook hands with a tall, boyish-faced man with blue, almost purple, eyes, and hair to match. Evan looked him up and down. The blue hair looked to be Free's natural colour, but the body looked more than a little store-bought, in his amateur, but informed, opinion. He wondered why he was at the gym. Trying to pick someone up, maybe? "Nice to meet you, Free."

"Same here."

"So where were you? Your cell is off."

"I met somebody here and we went off to his place," Evan explained.

"There's a lot of that going around," OxygenJim said, his grass-green eyes on Free.

Satisfied that he'd called the situation, Evan teased him. "That's so unlike you, OJ. I mean, it only took you fifteen minutes to get me in bed that first time."

"Ha! You need a memory chip installed. You came over to me, bottom-boy, not the other way around. Now who was this who kept you away for so long? I bet he didn't last an hour of waiting before he was naked."

Evan grinned. "I was in a hurry. Anyway, he never gave his name. Fire tint to his hair, gold eyes,..."

"That go really shiny when he gets excited? Oh, Temple's a pretty good lay."

"Temple? There's no way that's his UID."

OxygenJim, one of thse rare few whose unique Universal Identifier was good for an everyday name as well, said, "Nah. It's just his body is one."

"Ohhh," Evan said.

"Yeah. He's careful about what he lets into it, you see. Your legs were in the air this time out?"

"I sat on it, for the record."

"Whatever. You'll never hear from him again either way. Now I bet you're too tired for action now, and I was going to invite you to join Free and me. See? If you'd waited you wouldn't have wasted a load on Temple."

Free started feeling up Evan's muscular arm. Evan sized him up once more. Tall guy with a big frame. Could be something special if he was using the gym instead of just cruising it. Looked like he's using stimulation pads to get his muscle, and even then, not on high enough settings; Free was a bit lanky. Still, fun with Jim would offset anything Free might lack.

"What makes you think I'm that tired?" Evan asked, smiling.

"Minder, collect my messages, please."

There really was no need for Scott to be polite to the machine. It could never be offended. The agent orb would simply hover there, doing anything he asked. It wasn't quite sophisticated enough to get a full AI, though its owner found it to almost as necessary as his own internal computer.

Unable to appreciate the finer touches of the command, Minder executed it. It connected to the internet of the planet around which Scott_Quinn's ship orbited through the ship's computer. From there, it linked to the interplanetary 'net, and downloaded all messages sent to Scott's Universal Identifier. All this took less time than Minder would take to beep, indicating that the whole procedure was finished.

Scott turned away from the database he was examining and saw Minder had constructed its viewscreen to display the messages.

The first v-mail was brief. Scott's services were requested on Panopia. It seemed there was something of a scandal developing, and he seemed to be the ideal candidate to clean it up. Scott couldn't imagine how this could be, he was little more than a small-time data miner, but he flagged it so that he would reply later. The animated signature was that of a hotel, and he doubted a company like that on a pleasure planet would make such a mistake.

The second one was longer, but more enigmatic. A wryly smiling man with aquiline features appeared on the screen this time. Instantly, Scott didn't trust him.

"Hello, Scott_Quinn. My name is Evan. I understand that you studied under a Dr. Zymobius, the Pictavian terranthropologist. If my sources are right, you also inherited his archives when he passed away.

"The reason I'm in contact with you is that I have a file here that seems to be incomplete, and I have reason to believe that another piece of it is in Dr. Zymobius' collection. I was wondering if you would be willing to allow me to search for the counterpart to my file. The filename should be something like `Jasper 220'. That's what my piece is called. I hope to hear from you soon." A generic animation signed the message off.

"Minder, run a search on this Evan from the second message, name and face. See if he's corporate." Evan's request intrigued him.

Dr. Zymobius had been, in Scott's opinion, one of the most methodical men he'd ever known. While all Pictavians can tend to be single-minded, Zymobius was extreme even for his species. The simple thought that he had a file anywhere in his archives that was incomplete, one that had another piece lying around somewhere, was unbelievable.

Still, if this were a trick, using his connection to the Zymobius estate was a tenuous way to draw him out. Why not just hire him with a job that sounded typical? Then his suspicions would not be aroused.

It would cost him nothing to search for a file like this, he thought.

Scott shut down the database program and locked the terminal he was working at. This search would take a bit more power. He'd need to go through Ganymede.

Scott's ship was too small to have a CGS system to provide gravity. A Centripetal Gravity System would spin the ship to keep things on the outer hull of the vessel, like swinging a full pail of water in an arc over your head keeps you from spilling a drop. The Daybreaker was the right size for Scott's needs, and used artificial gravity fields to keep things down. The fields were weak, or else the gravity from one side of the ship would affect the other, and you'd reduce the number of Gs either way.

Scott walked through the galley and through the hatch into what he called the flip room. He grabbed the bar above the doorway and hauled himself up. He pushed off with his feet and turned himself upside down. The fields didn't reach into this rearmost part of the ship, and he was nearly weightless. Once he'd gone one-eighty degrees around or so, he kicked into the room and let his feet get pulled to the "floor", which he might have thought of as the roof a minute ago. Getting around like this could be confusing, but gravity was just too handy to do without.

He settled himself in front of Ganymede and asked for all files from Zymobius' section of the hierarchy with "Jasper" in their names. There were no matches.

"Ganymede, return all file names containing the number 220, plus or minus one, please."

No matches, said the computer.

Scott thought a second. He was not going to hand-search the whole section. It was huge. Even if he inloaded the file list to his implant, it would take hours. "Ganymede, isolate all filenames containing a string of alpha characters followed by a number."

The main computer worked a moment, then announced, >List compiled.

"What is the range of the numbers in these filenames?"

The lowest is one. The highest is 1,768.

"How many have three digits?"

Three hundred fifty-four.

"Let's try a different approach, then. How many of these files have a personal name as their alpha part. Restrict the search to traditional Earth names."

Zero.

Scott accessed the dictionary in the implant in his head. It contained a large amount of data about the known galaxy, and provided much helpful information. Among other things, "jasper" was a mineral.

"Ganymede, how many of these filenames have the name of a mineral found on Earth as their alpha part?"

Two.

Knowing Scott would be happy with this quantity, Ganymede displayed the filenames on the monitor. They were "Malachite 284" and "Diamond 9". Playing a suspicion, Scott checked the second file first. As he thought, it was about baseball.

"Close that and please open Malachite 284."

The computer made a sort of electronic crunching noise, then asked, >Specify application to use in opening this file, please.

"Ganymede," Scott said, offended, "you're supposed to know better than that. What type of file is Malachite 284?"

Ganymede paused and made the same noise as before, and stated, >A graphic file.

"Then use Visionary 7, please." Scott mentally instructed his implant to remind him to check Ganymede's file recognition software.

An image of a piece of a broken tablet appeared on the monitor. It had some kind of script on it, one that neither Scott nor any of his internal data systems recognized. Only its orientation in the picture suggested that the end of the complete tablet he was seeing was its top.

`He wants a copy, he can have it,' Scott thought. "Minder, send a message to that person who was interested in one of Zymobius' files that I think I've found the one he's looking for, and he can get his copy as soon as he gives me an address to send it to. I won't even charge him."

Done.

The man in the black leather jacket put his hi-res binocs away. There was a solid association between the target and the man at this address. Perhaps there was some way to use a little leverage through the target's friend. The friend's UID was OxygenJim.